» Update #1: Anna Nicole Smith

I blogged about this case previously (here and here). As this article notes, Ms. Smith's daughter Dannielynn has been named her sole heir.

The interesting issue raised here is this: if you specifically disinherit someone (as Ms. Smith did -- her Will excludes descendants born after its execution), but your Will winds up not listing any valid beneficiaries (thereby creating an intestacy, with your heirs inheriting your property), can the person you disinherited take as an heir? One approach might be to consider Ms. Smith's heirs, but exclude as heirs anyone specifically disinherited in the Will. I believe that would leave Ms. Smith's mother as her sole heir. Of course, there is an inherent unfairness involved here -- should an individual be able to disinherit their minor child?

» The Dirty Secret about Creditors and Claims in Probate

People are often upset to hear that a deceased person's debts must be paid as part of the probate process. But the dirty little secret is this: because of the laws, and the incompetence of creditors and their attorneys, you can often avoid many debts.

Let me give an example: I'm administering an estate. The decedent had a pretty big credit card balance (over $15,000) at the time of her death. There were probably 9 or 10 other debts that she owed at the time of her death (mostly unpaid utility bills).

Upon opening the probate estate, I sent notice directly to all known creditors. I also published general notice to creditors in the local newspaper. These notices are required under Illinois law, which also bars claims that are not filed within a certain period of time (usually six months after notice is published in the newspaper).

The notice period for this estate expired on February 23rd. Can you guess how many creditors filed claims prior to the expiration? Not a one, which means all of these claims are barred.

Special "praise" should be reserved for the law firm representing one of the creditors (the credit card company). My experience with them:

-I send them notice of my client's death.
-I am contacted by one of their representatives (not an attorney) about settling the debt.
-I ask the representative to fax me information about the debt (monthly statements), so that I can ascertain whether the debt is legitimate.
-I don't receive the information; when I call and tell the representative this, he becomes belligerent.
-The representative finally mails me some information about the debt, although not the information I requested. He also sends me copies of the fax cover sheets for the faxes he supposedly sent to me. Unfortunately, these sheets show that the representative was using the wrong fax number.
-This is the last I hear from the representative.

So now the claims period has expired, which means the credit card company won't be getting paid. And they have their attorneys to thank.

» Shoe Carnival Retraces Its Steps
Sales declines keep shoe retailers stepping backwards.

» What Motivates You?
Is it money? Revenge? The thrill of competition? These 4 successful entrepreneurs reveal why they do what they do.

» Housing Price Statistics

Almost three years ago -- soon after I started writing this blog -- I posted about how real estate sales statistics tend to shed more heat than light. Here's that post.

This still happens in a down market, like the one we have now. Each Sunday, in a feature called Price Pulse, The Chicago Tribune real estate section runs the numbers for a different area of Chicago. This week the focus was West Cook County and DuPage County, using figures from August - October 2007 (and the same period in 2006). The "results" are shown in a half-page color map.

My biggest complaint about Price Pulse is that its focus is on increase/decrease in value, and not on the effect of a good or bad market on the number of houses sold. While Price Pulse includes total units sold, the emphasis is on whether there was an increase or decrease. That's not particularly helpful, especially in municipalities where few houses are sold. (For instance, in Wayne, Illinois, the median price of houses sold went from $720,000 in Aug. - Oct. 2006 to $466,00 in Aug. - Oct. 2007. Given that only 5 houses were sold in the '06 period, and only 2 were sold in the '07 period, are these figures at all meaningful?)

Here's a quicker way to quantify what's going on in an area's real estate market, one that takes into account median price and number of houses sold. Basically, it just involves multiplying these numbers together, as you would for a company that sells widgets or spark plugs. You can then quantify the drop in "gross sales." For instance,...

I live in Oak Park. From Aug. - Oct. 2006, 348 homes were sold in Oak Park, with a median price of $310,000. From Aug. - Oct. 2007, the median price actually increased -- to $310,750 -- but the number of homes sold dropped to 272. Is it at all accurate to think that the Oak Park real estate market went up, based on the small increase in median price? I don't think so. Rather, I'd show the Oak Park market by doing the following calculations:

Aug. - Oct. 2006: 348 x 310,000 = $107.88 million in gross sales

Aug. - Oct. 2007: 272 x 310,750 = $84.524 million in gross sales

That's a decrease of about 22%, which is a number that makes sense to me. Overall, the "big" municipalities (which I define as municipalities with sales of 100 or more units in Aug. - Oct. 2006 and in Aug. - Oct. 2007) in West Cook and DuPage saw a decrease in gross sales of 23.50%. Berwyn had the highest decrease (57.84%).