Thursday, March 20, 2008

I, Ann-ona-Moose, being of sound mind. . .

Ran across this today in my brain-rot browsing
The family riff (sic), which dates back to the initial dispute over the grandfather's estate, was still raging during Heath's memorial. In fact, Mike Ledger claims 17 family member (sic) were not invited to attend services for Heath.

from MSNBC
"Riff". Is that what you have when a family "rift" and a family "tiff" have babies? Jus' checkin.

I will probably look into getting a will when we go home this summer. It's my understanding that in Germany it doesn't matter whether you die intestate or not and certain percentages of your estate are guaranteed to specific relatives regardless of your wishes (Pflichtanteil). In the States, there can be serious financial disadvantages to "going" without a will.

New and interesting tidbit: German wills must be handwritten if you want to avoid an expensive trip to the notary.

Do I really need to set up a power of attorney for the unnamed German spouse in the event of my incapacity - isn't the fact that this happens automatically a benefit of getting married?

2 comments:

Andrea's Garden said...

Hello, found your blog via Bek's blog. In Germany even a P.O.A. may not be good enough in a hospital - especially in some of the Catholic ones. I would always recommend doing a will via notary, though it may seem very expensive. German law is quite difficult when it comes to inheritances and a notary or a lawyer is aware of all the tax problems and reasons why a will should be written a certain way. Interesting blog! Greetings from cold Bavaria, Andrea

Paul Smith Jr. said...

"unnamed German spouse"

This is definitely less confusing than the double-meaning of "MG."