Inheritance Dispute (Case Study)

The two brothers Dobel had long agreed with their uncle Helmut from Pforzheim that, in the event of his death, they would be equal primary heirs. As children, the brothers had become orphans and were therefore raised by their uncle. In the last two years, contact between the two clients of Aaden Detective Agency Stuttgart and their foster father had become somewhat less frequent, as they had both found work and family abroad and came to Swabia only rarely. Uncle Helmut died, and the Dobel brothers were quite astonished when, in addition to the will they already knew from the 1990s, two more suddenly appeared. One, from 2014, added Uncle Helmut’s last partner as an equal third primary heir. The most recent one, from 2015, removed all three previous heirs and favored a person whose name was unknown both to the clients of our detectives in Pforzheim* and to the deceased’s last partner. The brothers could not imagine that things had been done properly here and suspected dementia in their foster father. They ruled out the possibility that he might have taken offense at their limited contact during the last two years of his life: “That was not his nature at all.”

Our detective agency for Pforzheim* was now tasked, first, with determining whether Uncle Helmut had suffered from a mental illness when he changed the wills, and second, with finding out what relationship the newly favored person had to the deceased.

Alienation from His Partner in Recent Years

In the first step of the investigation, our detectives in Pforzheim interviewed Uncle Helmut’s last partner. The two had not lived together; instead, they met only two to three times a week, accompanied each other to family celebrations, attended concerts and museums, took trips, and so on. Both were widowed and, in old age, simply felt the need to have someone by their side. “At that stage, it is no longer the great love; that is long gone,” the partner told our private detective in Pforzheim. “Helmut and I liked each other very much, but it was more a mix of friendship and partnership. I did not even know I was in the will, and I would not have wanted anything, because we had grown somewhat apart recently.” When asked about the reason for this estrangement, the lady stated that Helmut had increasingly behaved in an unusual and conspicuous manner, had become quick-tempered, and that spending time with him had become less and less enjoyable. Could it have been dementia? “Quite possible,” she replied, “but I do not know for sure.”

When our investigator asked whether she knew Helmut’s family doctor or had knowledge of any special treatments, our detective for Pforzheim* received the address of a practice that the deceased had frequently visited. He had been a private patient.

Medical Treatment for Dementia

The researcher from Aaden Corporate Detective Agency Stuttgart went to the practice and was told by the owner that, due to medical confidentiality, he could not provide any information about the deceased. Nevertheless, the investigator managed to get him to suggest trying a clinic where Helmut had been referred in 2013. With the appropriate authorizations from the foster sons, it might be possible to obtain information there.

After some bureaucratic effort and, unfortunately, several weeks of processing time, the Aaden detectives for Pforzheim* received, by proxy from this clinic, the information that Helmut had been treated there for ICD code F03 (“Dementia, unspecified”). Dementia could indeed have been the cause of such an unlikely change to a will. Further research showed that Helmut had been hospitalized several times in different clinics between 2013 and 2015. Whether his dementia had been the reason for these hospital stays could not be determined.

Address Tracing for the Unknown Heir

Now that the question of dementia had been clarified, our detective agency for Pforzheim* turned to the beneficiary of the last will. Since the address listed in the will in Hamburg was no longer correct and a registry inquiry by the executor yielded no result, the Aaden detectives Stuttgart had to carry out address tracing for the person sought. The search led them back to Pforzheim, specifically to the immediate neighborhood of Uncle Helmut’s house. At an apartment building, they found a doorbell plate bearing the heir’s name and reached him on the third attempt at the location. As we often experience, this man, in his mid-fifties, was also quite surprised to find private detectives at his door seeking information from him.

“Helmut was my father.”

“How do I stand in relation to Helmut, you ask? Helmut was my father,” the heir told our detectives in Pforzheim. “I grew up with my mother. She told me all her life that my father was a one-night stand and that she did not know his name. On her deathbed – that was in 2008 – she finally told me the truth; apparently she had a guilty conscience after all. Helmut and she had an affair in the late 1950s or early 1960s. But at that time he was already married and did not want to leave his wife even after I was born, which is why my mother and I went to her family in Hamburg. For years I struggled with whether I wanted to track him down and get to know him. In the end, I made up my mind in 2012. It was a very emotional encounter for both of us, and we both cried a lot. Shortly afterward he became ill: first cancer, then a dementia diagnosis was added. I decided to move to Pforzheim and at least care for him for the remaining time we would have together, since we had already gone 52 years without each other. Next month I am going back to Hamburg.”

“And the will – do you know anything about it?”, our detective from Aaden Detective Agency Stuttgart asks.

“I know that he had two foster sons. He did not call them ‘foster’ sons, though; they were his sons. He loved them very much, but unfortunately I never got to know them. He wanted to leave everything to them, but he also talked about including me in the will. That would be fine with me, because I am his son too. However, I absolutely do not want my ... brothers to be left empty-handed. That would be unfair and would also not do justice to their importance for Helmut. If the 2015 will is authentic, it is likely that he was no longer fully in his right mind. The dual illness caused him to decline very quickly. The Helmut I met in 2012 would never have disinherited his foster sons.”

A Reconciliatory Family Reunion

Shortly afterward, the Dobel brothers came to Germany to meet their quasi-brother in Hamburg. Together with the deceased Helmut’s last partner, all parties named in the three wills reached an amicable settlement, and the brothers thanked our detective agency in Pforzheim for its work.

*Notice*

Note: For reasons of discretion and data protection, the locations and certain personal details have been altered without changing the substance of the actual events.

*Note: All assignments of Aaden Detective Agency Stuttgart are processed by our operations management in Stuttgart. We have a network of qualified, vetted investigators who can be active on site for you within a short time.