{"id":186113,"date":"2025-12-16T07:14:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T07:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/186113\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T07:14:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T07:14:10","slug":"rob-reiner-wife-deaths-raise-estate-planning-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/186113\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Reiner, Wife Deaths Raise Estate Planning Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world awoke Monday to the tragic news that Hollywood icon Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, had been found dead in their Brentwood home with their throats slit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The primary suspect in the murders is the couple\u2019s 32-year-old son, Nick Reiner, who was arrested Monday morning<\/a>. Nick, who has been open in the past about his struggles with addiction and homelessness, allegedly committed the act during a heated argument with his parents, according to what few sources have come forward at this point.<\/p>\n

For our purposes, however, motivation is largely immaterial, and the real question is what happens to the Reiners\u2019 respective estates in the wake of this heinous act.<\/p>\n

Under the current facts as we know them (it\u2019s very early days and a great deal can change in the wake of an actual investigation), the two main estate planning concepts involved here are 1) slayer statutes; and 2) simultaneous death.<\/p>\n

Most U.S. jurisdictions have codified what are colloquially known as \u201cslayer statutes,\u201d which, in short, stop a person from inheriting property from someone they\u2019ve murdered.\u00a0<\/p>\n

California\u2019s\u00a0Slayer Statute\u00a0(Probate Code \u00a7250), made famous during the Menendez brothers case in 1989, prevents a person who feloniously and intentionally kills another from inheriting property, benefiting from wills and trusts or serving as an executor for the victim, treating the killer as if they predeceased the victim. These bars also extend to certain testamentary adjacent items, such as beneficiary designations (pay-on-death or transfer-on-death) on bank accounts, life insurance policies, retirement accounts and powers of appointment. Basically, the killer can\u2019t benefit from their crime.<\/p>\n

Related:The Lessons in Warren Buffett\u2019s Last Shareholder Letter<\/a><\/p>\n

Some notable exceptions include justifiable homicide (aka self-defense), accidental deaths and unintentional killings. However, the law is still a bit murky in less cut-and-dry cases involving things like mental illness or assisted suicide.<\/p>\n

Criminal conviction is generally conclusive evidence to invoke this statute, but it\u2019s important to note that distribution of an estate happens in civil (probate) court, not criminal court. As such, the burden of proof is lower (a preponderance of the evidence vs. beyond a reasonable doubt), so even in the absence of a criminal conviction, a slayer statute may still be invoked.<\/p>\n

The second element is that of simultaneous death. This was also recently a potential issue in the tragic case of Gene Hackman and his wife<\/a>. California is a community property state and follows the Uniform Simultaneous Death Act. The USDA provides guidelines for determining the distribution of community property when both spouses die simultaneously or if it can\u2019t be determined who passed away first.<\/p>\n

Related:Consider Your Clients\u2019 Collectibles When Evaluating Wealth<\/a><\/p>\n

According to the USDA, if there is no clear evidence that one spouse outlived the other by at least 120 hours (five days), the law presumes that each spouse predeceased the other. This means that each half of the community property will be distributed according to the deceased spouse\u2019s estate plan (if one exists) or in accordance with California intestate succession laws.<\/p>\n

Since little is known about the Reiner\u2019s estate plan or even the presence of wills \u00a0(or, more likely, in the case of Californians, revocable trusts), trying to project anything further is even wilder speculations than we\u2019ve already engaged in, and is beyond even the nebulous scope of this article. Still, it would not be surprising in the least to see more interesting developments in this high-profile case going forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The world awoke Monday to the tragic news that Hollywood icon Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,111,139,69,244,245],"class_list":{"0":"post-186113","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}