"I think people can create unintended consequences," Craig says. "They're coming at it from a place of love, but they aren't thinking about all the parameters."

Craig says she tries to steer people away from being too controlling, not just because it's sometimes morally incorrect-depending on what they're trying to control-but because there are a lot of unforeseen things that happen in life.

"I feel like it's my job to expand my clients' horizons and play devil's advocate, to point out that unfortunate things happen, and you want your trust to be flexible, so that in 10, 20, 30 years from now, it can accomplish your goals," Craig says.

Some of the strangest wills are written not by attorneys, but by wealthy individuals. In some cases, they're actually handwritten-though not all states accept them. The problem with such wills is that people don't always articulate what they want clearly enough, and they risk not achieving their intended goals. Lloyd Lowe, a Dallas-based wealth advisor, had a client whose will instructs the trustee "to keep a fly rod, shotgun, two horses and a dog together and in comfort at the current home until the last one passed away."
"I'm not sure how to bury the fly rod or shotgun, nor what kind of eulogy to give for either," Lowe says.

After speaking to the man who wrote the will, Lowe found out his real intent was to make sure that all of his favorite things were in order and that the phrase, "until the last passed," referred to himself or his wife. While Texas allows people to write their own wills-if it's written no longer than five years prior to death and the person writing it was of sound mind-people can't just write things in their wills and expect their executors to understand what they meant, Lowe says.

"Luckily, we got to talk to him beforehand, and it was fixed by an estate attorney," Lowe says.

Some clients are not specific enough. Lowe had a client who was retired and liked to tour around in a recreational vehicle. He had no immediate family and wanted to leave all of his money to a nude RV camp. There was no such institution, Lowe says. The man was part of a loose-knit group that would travel in recreational vehicles and camp in the nude, but there was no formal entity to which one could leave money.

And then some clients are so specific, they lose the control they are seeking. Lowe says he knows of a man who wrote his own will and said, "If my wife remarries the pool boy, cut her off completely."

"I guess if she married the gardener, she'd be OK, from a legal standpoint," Lowe says.

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