SPECIAL PURPOSE TRUST

Special instructions and requirements

An Italian man who never visited the place where his mother was born has left his entire estate – including a villa and a passel of cats and dogs – to her birthplace: the City of Boston.

According to an article in the Boston Globe, Luciana Visocchi grew up hearing stories about Boston from his mother and aunt. When he died last year, he left his estate – valued at around $700,000 – as well as his villa in the small central Italian village of Atina, to Boston.

However, there’s a catch: to cash in, Boston is obliged to take care of Visocchi’s two elderly dogs as well as a herd of cats.

If you create special provisions, you also need to provide answers to funding, unavailable beneficiaries, management, and remainder issues.

Visocchi’s hand-written last will and testament was forwarded from Italy to Boston’s legal department, which is still trying to determine how to proceed. An attorney in that department said she has already discovered that the inheritance may be contested. The previous beneficiaries of Visocchi’s estate included 18 members of a local political party before he reportedly had a change of heart and left his belongings to Beantown.