Susan Van Note probate case is as curious as the murdercase

Estate Planning is really about comfort. What estate planning is everything about is discovering theright devices to implement your basic needs. What that means is that we use the most sophisticatedlegal files to correctly implement your desires. We customize each and every plan so that you getexactly what you desire. We do this using the most current devices so that we can prepare apersonalized plan at the lowest possible cost. Please call us today with any questions.

The murder case against a Lee's Summit lawyer checks off enough juicy prerequisites to draw CBS'"48 Hours" and NBC's "Dateline" to a small town in the Ozarks.

Dead millionaire father and his girlfriend. Late-night attack. High-dollar lakefront home. Lots ofmoney. Contested will. Forged document.

That's why those New York news crews and other media soon will be settling into motels alongInterstate 44's business strip in Lebanon, Mo. -- to cover Susan Van Note's double-murder trial.

But chugging along at the same time is William Van Note's probate case, and it's no ho-hum affaireither.

In fact, legal experts say the fight over his millions is unlike any they've ever seen. For starters, anargument is being made that the "slayer" rule -- which says you can't murder someone and theninherit their money -- be extended to lengths never seen in Missouri.

When charged in a wrongful death suit, Susan Van Note unsuccessfully turned in a claim on herhomeowner's policy.

"It's a quite unusual case in lots of ways, and I've been doing this a long time," said DavidHoldsworth, an attorney appointed by the court to oversee the estate.

"It's also very sad."

First off, the person initially named to serve as personal representative of the estate -- what used tobe called the executor -- was Van Note's daughter, the person accused of killing him. The primarybeneficiary of his will was his girlfriend, Sharon Dickson, who was killed in the October 2010 attackat the Lake of the Ozarks.

Susan Van Note, 48, was removed as personal representative after being indicted, but she had herway with her father's money for two years before that happened. Then, when charged, she hired aprominent legal team three years after filing for bankruptcy.

Attorneys involved in the case are trying to sort out the millions, but a lot of cash is unaccounted for.The entire estate has been estimated at $8 million, though some say it could be more, a mishmash ofhomes, apartments, office buildings, cash, stocks, retirement accounts and promissory notes.

Van Note, 67 when he died, had been a Liberty businessman. Savvy, some say. He lent money to alot of people.

"He was kind of a private banker," Holdsworth said.

The probate part of the estate is roughly $3 million. An appeals court last year said Susan Van Notehad sold several properties for her own use. On June 5, a special master assigned to the casedetermined that she still owed $405,525.80 in probate money.

Dickson's son has intervened, saying he should inherit what would have been his mother's share hadshe not been killed.

That's where the slayer rule comes into play. Andrew Dickson's attorney will argue that not onlyshould Susan Van Note be barred, but also that no one in her family should receive what WilliamVan Note intended to go to Sharon Dickson. Susan Van Note, who is divorced, has a son.

The outcome of all this, of course, could depend on theverdict in her double murder trial in August in LacledeCounty Circuit Court in Lebanon. But then she still faces awrongful death lawsuit filed by Andrew Dickson.

For now, as the criminal case nears, the probate casecontinues to grow, quietly.

A request last week to see the case file in the Clay County Courthouse drew this response from aclerk:

"I'll have to get a cart."

William Van Note told the 911 operator that someone had hit him on the back of the head and thathis girlfriend had been shot.

It was shortly after 11 p.m. on Oct. 2, 2010. Someone had entered his three-story home at SunriseBeach, Mo.

Police would find Dickson, 59, dead from multiple gunshots and stab wounds.

Van Note, who had been shot in the head, was taken to University Hospital in Columbia. He diedfour days later, after his daughter showed up with a piece of paper -- a durable power of attorney forhealth care -- and asked doctors to remove her father from life support. The document was dated2009.

According to court documents, investigators allege that Susan Van Note forged the document earlierthat week using one like it she had prepared for a client. In her legal work, she specialized in end-o--life matters.

Her alibi for the night of the attack was that she was at home with her mother in Lee's Summit, atwo-hour drive from the lake. But prosecutors say her cellphone pinged a transmission tower nearher father's home five minutes after the attack.

A grand jury indicted her in 2012.

Prosecutors allege that she killed the couple because she wanted her father's money and was angrythat he had named Dickson as the executor and prime beneficiary.

William Van Note's will, prepared in 2003, states that all his cash, retirement funds and threehomes, including one in Florida, were to go to Sharon Dickson. It made no backup provision for herfamily if she died first.

A judge set bond at $1 million cash for Susan Van Note, an amount high enough to keep most peoplein jail.

But days later, someone showed up with the money. The attorney for Andrew Dickson soon asked ajudge to remove Susan Van Note as personal representative of her father's estate.

The judge agreed and ordered her to return any cash or other assets she had taken from the estate,including an initial $272,000. When she failed to comply, she was jailed for contempt. When sheappealed, the judge set her bond at roughly the same amount owed -- $275,000.

Her appeal failed and Holdsworth, who had been appointed to replace Van Note as personalrepresentative, asked the court to give the bond money she had posted to the estate.

The judge agreed.

Meanwhile, Van Note's murder case was moved from Boone County to Camden County. A judgethere lowered her bond from $1 million to $250,000. She received the difference.

Later, when asked in court where that $750,000 went, Van Note answered: "Spent."

One day last week, Holdsworth plopped an armload of files onto a table in his Liberty office.

"There's a lot more," he said.

For two years, he has been trying to sort out William Van Note's estate, and he stressed that SusanVan Note did nothing wrong in accessing funds from the estate while she served as personalrepresentative. Also, at that time she would have been the beneficiary.

"She distributed assets to herself, and now my job is to get those back," he said.

Van Note acknowledged to a judge that she had used some of the money to post bond to get out ofjail. Some involved in the case suspect her father's money Estate Planning Attorneys could be goingto pay her defense lawyers.

A call to lead defense attorney Tom Bath of Overland Park was not returned. Kansas City lawyerJohn Christiansen, who is representing her in the probate case, could not be reached.

When asked if he would go after money Van Note had spent on her defense, Holdsworth said: "I willpursue the $405,000 wherever."

In 2009, when Van Note filed for bankruptcy, the trustee couldn't find a single asset to help satisfynearly $400,000 in creditor claims. Van Note's house was valued at $210,000, but her mortgage

balance was $270,000.

After http://topics.nytimes.com/your-money/planning/estate-planning/index.html learning that VanNote had come up with $1 million dollars for bond, the trustee, Kansas City attorney Erlene Krigel,went looking for assets again.

"I discovered a bank account with $98,000 she had not disclosed," Krigel said last week. "It was ajoint account with her mother, so I only got half of it, but (I) was able to get some money forcreditors."

Krigel said she was monitoring all the Van Note cases.

The probate file includes a document showing that on Aug. 26, 2011, Susan Van Note paid out$73,000 to satisfy a claim filed by her mother against her father's estate. The claim was filed Aug.31, 2011.

That means the claim, for a lien on a property, was satisfied before it had been filed.

Van Note's mother, Barbara Van Note, who was divorced from William Van Note, went to prison in2005 for forging her own mother's signature to a power of attorney document to get money from atrust fund account.

Early in 2013, Andrew Dickson entered the case.

On July 5 that year, Van Note argued that Dickson had no legal standing, referring to SharonDickson as "Mr. Van Note's now deceased, unmarried significant other." Her filing goes on to say:"Given that Ms. Dickson predeceased (William Van Note), the will distributes the entire estate to Ms.Van Note."

Andrew Dickson's attorney, Jerome Brant, who also is the attorney for Sharon Dickson's estate, saidthey are asking the court to prohibit anyone "from inheriting, or intentionally vesting in an heir, theproperty William Van Note intended to leave Sharon Dickson."

The murder trial was supposed to happen in early June, but a judge declared a mistrial afterpotential jurors discussed the case. Two days later, Brant filed a motion for a hearing in thewrongful death suit. It is scheduled for July 15.

A University of Missouri-Kansas City law school professor doesn't think the extended slayerargument has ever been made in Missouri. The state does not have a slayer statute, but case law, orcommon law, serves the same purpose.

Julie Cheslik, who has taught estate law for 25 years, said such provisions typically bar only theslayer from benefiting. So in the Van Note case, because Sharon Dickson also died, the money wouldlikely pass to Susan Van Note's son.

"Courts don't rewrite wills," Cheslik said. "What they are asking is a stretch for the slayer rule. Theproblem for the son (Andrew Dickson) is that the will didn't include a backup plan."

Cheslik added, however, that she knows of two cases in other states where the slayer rule has beenextended to the slayer's heirs.

Holdsworth is glad he doesn't have to decide all those questions regarding William Van Note'smoney.

"Fortunately for me, I just have to wait for the judge's order to come in and then distribute theassets."

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article25074253.html

Finally, estate preparation has to do with assurance. The process itself is extremely important aswell as can aid you create a great, solid working strategy that will look after you, your children, aswell as your possessions in situation of your death or handicap.