A Minnesota man with a love for cars left an unusual bequest to his church.
Churches are used to receiving gifts from their parishioners as part of those parishioners' estates. Most such gifts come in the form of cash bequests or securities. Sometimes, people will leave their homes to the church so that the church can sell them for money. However, Dennis Erickson of Minnesota went one step further. He left his home and its contents to his church. When a church employee went to catalog the contents of the home, she found it full of model and toy cars. In all the house contained over 30,000 miniature cars and a couple of the real things. Collectors have already contacted the church about obtaining the model cars. Fox News reported this story in "Man donates home full of thousands of model cars to church."
Not to criticize someone who gave a valuable donation to his church, but it is possible that this donation could have been handled better in his estate plan. Cataloging the model car collection and disposing of it will come at an expense for the church. If possible, Erickson could have cataloged the collection before he passed away or even sold off the collection and left the proceeds to the church.
If you would like to leave a bequest in your estate to your church or another charity, ask an estate planning attorney about the best way to do so.
Reference: Fox News (March 29, 2016) "Man donates home full of thousands of model cars to church."
