The casket bearing the body of Aretha Franklin is interned in the mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery in Detroit. EPA/PAUL SANCYA / POOL
The casket bearing the body of Aretha Franklin is interned in the mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery in Detroit. EPA/PAUL SANCYA / POOL

Aretha’s lack of a will could make things rocky for heirs



Aretha Franklin was so hard-nosed in her business dealings that she demanded to be paid in cash before performing. Her heirs won’t have it so simple.

Though she lived to 76 and was terminally ill with pancreatic cancer, the Queen of Soul died without a will.

As her four sons and other family members move on from Friday’s funeral in Detroit, they’re left with the potentially tall task of finding out how many millions she was worth, and divvying it up, a process that could take years and is likely to play out in public.

Estate law experts expressed surprise but not shock that a wealthy person like Franklin would put off making a will until it was too late. At least one of the singer's lawyers said he had urged her repeatedly over the years to draft one.

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“I tried to convince her that she should do not just a will but a trust while she was still alive,” said Don Wilson, a Los Angeles lawyer who worked on entertainment matters for Franklin for nearly 30 years. “She never told me, ‘No, I don’t want to do one'. She understood the need. It just didn’t seem to be something she got around to.”

Laura Zwicker, a lawyer who specialises in estate planning but is not affiliated with the Franklin estate, said she saw it happen all too often in her work.

“People don’t like to face their own mortality,” Ms Zwicker said. “I had a client who had a $70 million [Dh257.1m] real estate portfolio who had had end-stage diabetes. He had plenty of conversations with me about estate planning but would not sign the documents.”

Papers filed in Michigan’s Oakland County court last week by David J Bennett, the lawyer who worked most closely with Franklin, lay out the few known basics:

She was not married and left four sons, ages 48 to 63: Clarence Franklin, Edward Franklin, Kecalf Franklin and Ted White Jr. Clarence, Aretha’s eldest, who is incapacitated and is represented by a guardian. A niece of hers has accepted the role of executor.

Under Michigan law, as in most states, the sons will equally divide their mother’s assets in the absence of a will, and so far no signs of conflict have emerged among family members. Mr Bennett did not respond to phone and email messages seeking comment.

Aretha Franklin’s friend Ron Moten, a Michigan businessman, gave the four sons some guidance in his speech at Friday’s funeral.

“Remember your family, and friends that have been with you for years,” Mr Moten told the men. “Because you are about to meet a lot of people who will now want to be your new best friend. You will also meet some people that will have the best investments in the world for you. My advice? Go slow, be careful and be smart.”

The documents make no mention of the value of Franklin's estate. The figure almost certainly runs into the tens of millions, but there will probably be widely varying estimates as her lawyers seek to downplay her wealth for tax purposes and the IRS tries to maximise the amount for its own reasons.

Franklin had maintained ownership of the songs she wrote and did well by them, Mr Wilson said, though of her major hits, Think is the only one that's her own composition. She also wrote some lesser hits, such as Rock Steady.

Though her records were played millions of times, she earned little in radio royalties from smashes like 1967's Respect because such payments go overwhelmingly to the song's author, not the performer. In the case of Respect, the royalties go to the estate of Otis Redding.

“I would imagine she probably felt she was entitled to more, but probably received more than a lot of artists from the time, especially African-American artists,” Mr Wilson said.

Among Franklin’s more tangible assets are several pieces of property in the Detroit area that according to tax assessors’ estimates are worth at least $2m, with a market value that could easily be twice that.

Once the value is established — a process that could take years — the IRS will take any back taxes Franklin owed, then tax her estate at 40 per cent for any assets beyond $11.2m.

Kenneth Abdo, a lawyer who specialises in probate law and has worked on the estate of Prince, who also died without a will, said the IRS would conduct an audit of her holdings.

Mr Wilson, her entertainment lawyer, said she would not have wanted to see her finances publicly aired: “She was a private person.”

As for why some clients don’t make out a will, Ms Zwicker said some heirs, like Franklin’s son Clarence, may need more than others, and that can be a difficult and touchy decision for a parent.

“One arrangement may be fitting for one child, where other people need more help,” Ms Zwicker said. “To accept that and put it on paper can be hard for a parent.”

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Libya's Gold

UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves. 

The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.

Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.

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How much do leading UAE’s UK curriculum schools charge for Year 6?
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Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.

 

Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year

 

Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month

 

Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30 

 

Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse

 

Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth

 

Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances

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Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010

Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille

Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm

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Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners

TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013 

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Real estate tokenisation project

Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.

The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.

Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.

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