Attorneys ceaselessly inform their purchasers that everybody must have a will that obviously states who must inherit their belongings once they die. However even having a will isn’t essentially sufficient to steer clear of a expensive and contentious felony dispute.
Imagine what came about after Jimmy Buffett died of pores and skin most cancers on the age of 76 in 2023. The singer and entrepreneurial founding father of the Margaritaville emblem ordered in his will that his fortune be positioned in a consider after his dying. To regulate the consider, Buffett named two co-trustees: his widow, Jane Slagsvol, and Richard Mozenter, an accountant who had served because the singer’s monetary adviser for greater than 3 many years.
In dueling petitions filed in Los Angeles and Palm Seashore, Florida, in June 2025, on the other hand, Slagsvol – recognized as Jane Buffett in her felony submitting – and Mozenter are each in the hunt for to take away each and every different as a trustee.
The end result of this litigation will decide who will get to manage Buffett’s US$275 million property.
As legislation professors who concentrate on trusts and estates, we educate graduate classes in regards to the switch of belongings all over existence and at dying. We imagine that the Buffett dispute gives a precious lesson for any individual with an property, massive or small. And choosing the proper individual to control the belongings you permit in the back of can also be simply as necessary as settling on who will inherit your private home.
Buffett’s industry empire
Buffett’s property contains precious highbrow belongings from his hit songs, together with “It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere,” “Oldest Surfer on the Beach” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise.” Buffett’s albums have bought greater than 20 million copies international and proceed to generate some $20 million yearly in royalties. Buffett additionally owned a yacht, actual property, airplanes, fancy watches and precious securities.
As well as, he owned a 20% stake in Margaritaville Holdings LLC, a emblem control corporate he and Slagsvol based within the Nineties. Margaritaville owns 30 eating places and 20 motels, in conjunction with holiday golf equipment, casinos and cruise ships. It additionally sells branded products.
Consistent with Slagsvol’s petition, Buffett’s consider used to be set as much as receive advantages his widow. Slagsvol, who married Buffett in 1977, is one among two trustees of that consider, which is needed to have a minimum of one “independent trustee” along with her “at all times.” That requirement is mentioned expressly in Buffett’s consider declaration.
Slagsvol receives all source of revenue earned through the consider – an estate-planning methodology for gifting away belongings controlled through a trustee on behalf of the consider beneficiaries – for the remainder of her existence. She too can obtain further consider budget for her well being care, residing bills and “any other purpose” that the impartial trustee – Mozenter, as of July 2025 – deems to be in Slagsvol’s absolute best pursuits.
The property plan additionally created separate trusts for his or her 3 kids: Savannah, Sarah “Delaney” and Cameron Buffett, who’re of their 30s and 40s. Each and every kid reportedly won $2 million upon Jimmy’s dying. When Slagsvol dies, she will come to a decision who will obtain any final belongings from amongst Buffett’s descendants and charities.
The construction of Buffett’s plan is standard amongst rich married {couples}. It supplies lifelong give a boost to for the surviving partner whilst making sure that their children and grandchildren can inherit the rest of their property – although that partner remarries. This kind of consider usually can’t be modified through the surviving partner with out court docket approval.
In case you’re lucky sufficient to achieve your golden years with a large nest egg, it is helping your family members if you’ll draft an in depth will. You may also need to imagine organising a consider.
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Dueling trustee removing petitions
Slagsvol is making an attempt to take away Mozenter because the consider’s impartial trustee.
She claims he refused to conform together with her requests for monetary knowledge, didn’t cooperate together with her as her co-trustee, and employed a consider lawyer who harassed her to surrender as trustee. Slagsvol additionally raised a lot of questions in regards to the consider’s source of revenue projections and reimbursement paid to Mozenter for his products and services.
Mozenter’s petition, filed in Florida, isn’t to be had to the general public. Consistent with media protection of this dispute, he seeks to take away Slagsvol as trustee. He claims that, all over his decades-long function as Buffett’s monetary adviser, the musician “expressed concerns about his wife’s ability to manage and control his assets after his death.”
That led Buffett to ascertain a consider, Mozenter asserted, “in a manner that precluded Jane from having actual control” over it.
Property making plans courses
We imagine that the general public can be informed two necessary property making plans courses from this dispute.
First, any individual making plans to go away an property, whether or not modest or huge, wishes to make a choice the suitable other people to control the switch in their belongings after their dying.
That would possibly imply choosing a certified executor or trustee who isn’t associated with you. A qualified is also much more likely to stay impartial must any disputes stand up throughout the circle of relatives, however hiring one can saddle the property with expensive charges.
Another is to make a choice a relative or relied on pal who’s keen to try this without spending a dime. About 56% of wills identify an grownup kid or grandchild as executor, consistent with a contemporary find out about. Some estates, like Buffett’s consider, identify each a certified and a circle of relatives member. A very powerful attention is whether or not the folks requested to control the property gets in conjunction with each and every different – and with any individual else who’s slated to inherit from the property.
The second one lesson is, whether or not you select a certified, a cherished one or a pal to control your property, shed light on what instances would warrant their removing. Courts are reluctant to take away a handpicked trustee with out evidence of negligence, fraud or disloyalty. However trustees can also be got rid of when a breakdown in cooperation interferes with their talent to manage the property or consider.
Some trusts wait for such conflicts through permitting beneficiaries to switch a certified trustee with any other skilled trustee. That may get to the bottom of some disputes whilst heading off the price of in the hunt for court docket approval.
Combating disputes from erupting within the first position can lend a hand other people avert the expensive and embarrassing roughly litigation now ensnaring Jimmy Buffett’s property.
