Business Insider quoted Larry Mandelker on the developments surrounding Gene Hackman’s estate.
According to the article, court documents filed in the First Judicial District Court of New Mexico and obtained by Business Insider show that a 2005 copy of Hackman's will named his wife Betsy Arakawa Hackman as the successor trustee of his living trust. "That's a way of saying, 'I'm giving it to the trust,'" explains Mandelker.
Hackman had intended for his wife to serve as the person responsible for carrying out the instructions of the trust, the contents of which are not publicly known.
The trust document, which typically has provisions about how a person's assets are to be distributed, could become public if there is a legal dispute over Hackman's will, Mandelker explains.
Commenting on who may contest the will, Mandelker says, "Usually, the people that can object to a will are a limited class of people, and it's usually limited to the next of kin."
Commenting on who may be a beneficiary of the trust, Mandelker explains that it is possible Hackman's assets were to be distributed in full to Arakawa Hackman, but as Hackman's will named backups, his trust likely names a backup beneficiary, Mandelker said. "You're always going to want a backup, and if there isn't a backup, then you have to follow the default laws," explains Mandelker.
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