October 8, 2024 / Press
Jonathan Forster Discusses John Amos’s Estate in Exclusive with People Magazine
Jonathan Forster recently spoke to People Magazine about what may happen with the estate of actor John Amos following his passing in August, and the elder abuse claims that circulated prior to his death. The familial issues, while not uncommon, lay out an odd situation for the estate – Amos’s daughter Shannon Amos had accused her brother Kelly Christopher Amos (K.C.) of elder abuse and was estranged from the family with a no-contact order against K.C.
Jonathan told People it’s likely Amos had a trust instead of a will, as it allows for more privacy. “When you die without a trust, you have to go through probate, and probate is a court-supervised transfer of assets, and that’s a public administration,” he explains. “So most celebrities do not want their estate to go through probate for privacy concerns, and if they have a trust, then the trustee named in their trust would be responsible for all of that.”
“If they were serving together as trustees and they have a no-contact order, they would have to figure out how to manage this situation,” Jon points out. “If [Shannon’s] going to bring an action against her father’s estate [hypothetically], presumably she’s going to do that through her attorneys, as opposed to she herself contacting her brother … So I don’t know that that, in and of itself, is going to become an issue.”
“In general, people leave their assets to their children, and they don’t cut out a child unless there’s good reason to do so,” Jon tells People. “But if the disinherited child wanted to bring an action against the estate, it would typically be for one of two reasons: One is the person lacked capacity when they signed their estate plan documents. So for example, they were suffering from dementia, they didn’t know what they were signing. Their child took them to a lawyer and had them sign documents when they truly didn’t understand. That would be one reason.”
Read the full article in People Magazine.