1971’s Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, for example, dealt with the process of the great Willy Wonka finding a suitable heir for his factory. Wonka then went about it by creating a competition that narrowed the results down to a select group of children. When you take the plot at its face value, it sounds like a scenario that will never happen, but there is a real life case that bears a remarkable resemblance to this synopsis. A Portuguese aristocrat, Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral da Camara, decided to donate his fortune to 70 random people whom he’d never met – the 70 were picked at random from the phone book!
Another bizarre film depiction was Disney’s The Richest Cat in the World, which follows the escapades of a talking cat after he inherits of over $5 million. At one time, we’d have all enjoyed this as nothing but an elaborate film. However, as many of you know, there are many people all over the world who love their animals way more than any human member of family. Therefore we’re left with another real-life inheritance story that sounds like something Disney thought up. Billionaire Leona Helmsley has left the shockingly huge amount of $12 million to her terrier, Trouble. Some of her family members were actually cut from the will altogether, including four of her grandchildren.
Surprisingly there are no end of bizarre real-life inheritance stories that make your head spin when you hear about them. Despite the fact that there are classics like The Ultimate Gift, which involves a son having to go through a series of tests to inherit his grandfather’s wealth, there are cases in reality that immediately top that kind of tale hands down.
Most notably is the case in which a murderer is set to inherit the wealth of the woman he killed. Brandon Palladino killed his mother-in-law and still stands to get his hands on her money once he’s released from jail. Sadly her daughter (Brandon’s wife) passed away, and therefore everything is left to him.
We got a quote from Emma Myers from Saga.co.uk to see how this wouldn’t be possible in the UK: “In England and Wales there are laws that stop murderers from benefitting from their victim’s money. It is unfortunate in this case that this law would not apply as he is not benefitting from his mother in law but instead from his wife who benefitted from his mother in law. It is important to remember that you can specify what you want to happen to your money in your Will, but the only way to control what that person does with it and who they leave it to is to use a trust.”