The Probate Lawyer Blog

 1. No will. Most of us naturally want to be sure our assets are distributed properly after we pass away, so it’s surprising that almost two-thirds of adults don’t even have simple wills. Whether you have millions of dollars or just a modest estate, estate planning is critical — starting with a will.

Unfortunately for the family of Amy Winehouse, the singer didn’t have a will when she unexpectedly passed away at age 27, leaving behind a $6.7 million estate.

Shortly after Amy Winehouse passed away from accidental alcohol poisoning at the age of 27 last July, reports surfaced that she not only had a will, but she had the foresight to update her will after her divorce from ex-husband, Blake Fielder-Civil.  These early reports have recently been proven wrong.  

But, let’s not jump to conclusions so quickly.  The assets passing through probate court are those left in her individual name when she died.  So anything held jointly with someone else, or that had a beneficiary designation (like a life insurance policy), would pass outside of probate, directly to the other person.  Also, if Winehouse had a trust — which is unlikely, considering she didn’t have a will — anything held in the trust would also avoid probate.  None of these types of assets would be included in her estate value as listed in the probate documents.

Let’s face it … Twitter is a social media phenomenon that won’t stop growing any time soon.  Estimates place the number of users at around 500 hundred million.

In fact, it’s getting more and more use even by celebrities who are no longer with us.  Whether it’s attributable to their estates, companies managing their image rights, or other-worldly influences, just because someone is dead doesn’t mean they can’t have an active Twitter account.

This topic got us thinking, and researching.  What are the most-followed official Twitter accounts of deceased celebrities?  Trial & Heirs has the answer.

We’ve done our best to only include actual celebrity accounts.  If you use Twitter and want to follow all of these, we created a Twitter list with all ten.

(All totals are as of March 1, 2012.)