Is an Estate Planning Worksheet a Promise to Make a Bequest? New York Court Says “No!”
Testators are completing “estate planning worksheets” more than ever before. Attorneys require them from prospective clients to shorten meetings and facilitate document preparation. Charities provide them in “estate planning kits” as subtle reminders of the importance of bequests. Some of the do-it-yourself websites employ similar templates to simplify the creation of online wills and trusts.
Few would seriously think that a completed questionnaire is a will, or even a commitment to make one. However, chutzpa comes in many forms. The case of Padilla v. Estate of Larmett, 2024 NY Slip Op. 04821, is a recent example of such audacity that may interest bequest managers.
Larmett prepared his will in 2016 with no mention of Padilla. Sometime in 2020, he began thinking about revisions to the 2016 document and had conversations about it with his nephew. In addition, he submitted preliminary will “questionnaires” to a prepaid legal service plan that he had. In those documents, he did show an intent to leave something to Padilla, although the amount was uncertain. Larmett’s estate plan revision never progressed beyond that stage and he died in early 2021.
Padilla filed suit claiming that Larmett’s ruminations on changes to his estate plan, especially his questionnaire answers, constituted an enforceable agreement for him (Padilla) to receive a bequest. Not unexpectedly, the New York court made short work of this rather weak claim. Binding contracts-to-bequeath are relatively rare. Sometimes these emerge from within blended families or in connection with shared business interests. Padilla’s allegation of a contract with Larmett didn’t even come close.
CCK COMMENT: The trend of relaxing the formalities of estate administration is spawning many marginal cases in which hopeful beneficiaries are seeking to have non-wills treated as wills. One wonders if Padilla might have had more success had he foregone the dead-on-arrival contract theory and argued that the will questionnaire was in “substantial compliance” with the requirements for, e.g., writing a codicil.
On balance, gift planners would do well to encourage bequest donors to prepare proper, fully compliant wills to make charitable bequests. Such documents are very likely to prevail over genuine but legally insufficient estate planning materials.
(This blog was originally posted on our LinkedIn on April 8, 2025.)