subject: Preferred Legacies [print this page] Preferred Legacies Preferred Legacies
Preferred Legacies Unless you are leaving your entire estate to your wife or to your only son or daughter, you may have preferences among the beneficiaries. You probably want to provide first for your wife, and then for your children, and after that for your friends and various charities. Your freedom in providing the order of priority is complete as long as you do not disinherit your wife or husband, but you should remember that the order of priority will always be subject to the right of election unless that right is waived.
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If you have provided for your wife in one paragraph of your WILL, for your children hi another, and have made other legacies or bequests in other paragraphs, you should include a clause granting priority to your wife and children and providing that their legacies be paid in full before the other legacies are paid even in part. While the law presumes that you intended your property to be distributed in accordance with certain preferences and priorities, your individual scheme may not follow what the law has presumed. Therefore, you should be sure that your wishes are expressed clearly. If your WILL is clear, it is the supreme law and fixes the rights of the legatees subject only to your widow's right of election. Rules concerning "abatement" will fall if you have stated in your WILL that you want them to fall. Taking into account the fact that your estimate of the size of your estate may differ radically at the time of your death from its valuation at the time you make your WILL, you should provide for the abatement or proportionate reduction of various bequests. As a rule, you will provide that the bulk of your estate pass as the residue to the principal object of your generosity. However, the change in circumstances may be such that the residuary legatee may receive far less than the specific legatees. To forestall such a contingency, you may provide that if the total of the specific legacy shall exceed a specified percentage, say 10% of your estate, those legacies be abated or reduced proportionately so the total will not exceed 10% or 15% or whatever percent you determine. If you wish, your lawyer can combine your directions and can direct that the bequests shall not abate below a fixed figure.
It is important for your instructions in this regard to be specific. You may provide for priority to legacies to your wife, with the second priority or preference to your children, the third to your grandchildren, the fourth to your friends or your business associates, and the fifth to charities. Directions as to time of payment do not necessarily establish priority and you should discuss this point with your lawyer to be sure that the language in your WILL is exactly what you want it to be and that it does just what you want it to do.
