The gory details of inheritance disputes are endlessly reported in the media without any suggestion as to why inheritance combatants sometimes behave like animals. Inheritance and Family Conflict looks beyond the morbid minutia of such battles to provide a first time ever explanation of what motivates inheritors to fight the way they do. Attorney P. Mark Accettura brilliantly melds his nearly thirty years of estate planning and elder law experience with years of research, including interviews with leading authorities, in the fields of social psychology, evolutionary psychology, psychiatry, gerontology, and neuropsychology, to arrive at this unique and insightful treatment of family conflict in the inheritance realm. Having explained why families fight at the death of a loved one, the author then explores the legal protections and remedies available to combat inheritance misconduct, and offers sixty-one specific recommendations to prevent it.

Using a multidisciplinary approach, Mark explains that inheritance greed and pettiness are merely symptoms of the struggle of survivors to feel loved and important, and to assuage the subconscious terror that the death of a loved one activates. Thus, the fight for money and things, like dad's watch or mom's wedding ring, is not about the object or the money itself, but what they symbolize: importance, love, security, self-esteem, connectedness, and immortality.

Inheritors are more likely to fight when they feel that they have been treated unfairly. Fairness, though, is relative, and depends on a number of factors including the prevailing inheritance laws and customs of the day. The inheritance expectations of women, for example, have historically been very low, as women, especially married women, did not earn the right to inherit on a par with men until the mid-1800s. In a fascinating journey, the author traces the history of inheritance laws, and thus inheritance expectations, from prehistoric man, through the Greeks, to the influential Romans, through the Middle Ages, and then on to England, before arriving at our modern laws of intestacy.

Another reason that families fight is because one, if not all, members of the family are, well, "nuts." A significant number of inheritance disputes involve testators and beneficiaries who come from dysfunctional families, are mentally ill, addicted, or suffer from Cluster B - narcissism, borderline, histrionic, or antisocial - personality disorders. Mark explores the impact of these toxic participants on the inheritance process and their non-monetary legacy. Famously toxic testators, like Leona Helmsley and Sumner Redstone, are contrasted with altruistic testators such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. The story of Alfred Nobel is included as an example of how one can convert a potentially toxic legacy into an altruistic one.

The recent Brooke Astor case, perhaps the most legally significant example of elder abuse in American history, is a prototypical inheritance dispute involving an anything but common family. Like many of its ilk, it begins with the predatory acts of a bad actor against a failing and isolated elder. The Astor case highlights the limitations of the current legal/medical model in assessing legal capacity; a key element in virtually all inheritance disputes. Using the Astor case as a guide, the author tracks the symptoms and slow progression of dementia, including the various disabilities and retained capacities associated with each stage of the disease. The importance of human contact and the deleterious effects of isolation to our sense of security, self esteem, terror management, and sanity are themes that run throughout the book.

Inheritance and Family Conflict ends with a recipe for family harmony, specific recommendations to prevent inheritance conflict, and an inspirational message to use the lessons learned in the book to live a more meaningful life and leave a more rich and lasting legacy.