Similar story: "AITA for not declining or signing over my portion of my ex bfs life insurance payout too his mom?"
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/1d8rfzr/aita...
Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
21–30 of 55 posts
Re: Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
#22If I was on the receiving end of something like this I’d just give the money back.
I think I'd give some back. No way you'd really give $1m back though unless you really didn't need it (possible here). I would say morally nobody is really entitled to inheritance and they clearly don't need the money, so you're doing them a favour by giving it back.
Re: Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
#23TLDR: A person named a girlfriend as a retirement plan beneficiary. They later broke up, he had another girlfriend, they eventually also broke up, and 10 years after the second breakup he died single and childless. His brothers want money to go to estate (brothers), but the beneficiary form trumped estate (as it should). It is not clear from reading the post what the account owner wanted. It is possible he just didn'…
I think its important to mention that he broke up with the ex in question in 1989, and died in 2015.
Re: Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
#24The article seems to suggest that this is a bad thing. But what's the alternative? That it just gets soaked up by the bank or the state or whatever happens when there's no will? Better it go to a person even semi by mistake like in this case in my opinion
Re: Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Easy to say when not only is it not happening to you but you haven't spent years engaging with the legal process and waiting for the estate to try and make sure you can't have it. The possibility of winning a jackpot would grow on you, you'd start to imagine what it would be like to keep it and the brothers, being your adversaries, would look less deserving than they do to an outsider.
I suppose it depends. If this person had intentionally done this to my benefit over their children and it was current then sure I'd take the money. But if it's a 50 years old out of date commitment to a life long gone and there are other genuinely more deserving in terms of being actually children then yeah I'd give it to them. I'd just see it as a kind of a bank error. If the bank drops 1 million bucks into your acc…
> There have been cases reported of this in Australia where people do spend the money that the bank inadvertently puts in their account - I find that hard to understand.
It happened to me once and it never occurred to me I could spend the money just because someone made a mistake. If I was stupid enough to spend it, I would have to give it back anyway, so what's the point?
Re: Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
#26It is super difficult to ask deceased people what they actually wanted.
In respect for the dead person, we absolutely have to carry out their will.
It might be there there is a brother somewhere that feels hurt. But we really don't know if the deceased one really wished that his early crush should have the money.
What we can do, however, is to make sure we update our wills.
Re: Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
#27[dead]
Re: Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
#28The article seems to suggest that this is a bad thing. But what's the alternative? That it just gets soaked up by the bank or the state or whatever happens when there's no will? Better it go to a person even semi by mistake like in this case in my opinion
People updating their wills is the good alternative they're advocating.
Re: Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
#29If I was on the receiving end of something like this I’d just give the money back.
Really? I wouldn't. I'd consider it a generous gift from beyond the grave, and use it to help my own family.
Re: Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
#30The article seems to imply we are sure this was all by mistake. I don't share this view. If the deceased created an account for Murray (ex-girlfriend), and later removed Murray as the second beneficiary from another asset (but kept other ex-girlfriend Sjostedt on the same), then this may be what he intended . As a single guy, providing part of your assets to two former partners (one might say common law wives, given…
The difference is one required an annual update whereas the retirement fund didn’t require an update at all so easy to over look.