“The sun goes down on our love, but it will never go down on Heathy.”+ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
HEATH Ledger's toddler daughter, Matilda Rose, is entitled to the late Hollywood star's entire multi-million-dollar fortune, legal experts say.
The latest twist in the drama surrounding Ledger's estate would give his parents and sisters nothing, despite being left the actor's fortune in his will.
A secret love child, a daughter now aged 11, who his family believe Ledger may have fathered with an older woman, would also miss out to Matilda if she challenged the will under Australian law, the New York lawyers say.
The will, filed with a Manhattan court after 28-year-old Ledger's death from an accidental drug overdose in January, was written two years before the birth of his daughter and puts the bulk of his assets into a trust.
The beneficiaries of the trust are his father Kim, mother Sally Ledger-Bell, sister Kate and half-sisters Ashleigh and Olivia.
However, under the intestacy laws of New York and California, Matilda cannot be "accidentally disinherited", lawyers Joanna Grossman and Mitchell Gans have said.
"In this case, New York's intestacy laws lead us to a somewhat striking result," they wrote on a website.
"Matilda, who was omitted from her father's will entirely, would be entitled to everything."
They cite a precedent from a 2003 New York probate case in which a man's entire estate was given to his infant daughter even though he had left a valid will leaving everything to his parents.
In a statement issued just after the will was made public, Kim Ledger said Matilda would not be left without an inheritance.
It is not known whether her mother, actor Michelle Williams, has challenged the will.
Williams, who met Ledger on the set of Brokeback Mountain, was estranged from him when he died.
However, Williams' Sydney-based father, Larry Williams, said yesterday he believed the will would be automatically revoked in favour of Matilda under New York law, and no challenge would be necessary.
"Michelle is an independent person who will do what she believes is best," Mr Williams said.
"I deeply respect her doing what is right."
The three-page will listed only $145,000 of assets belonging to Ledger in the US but his fortune, estimated to be worth $20 million, is mostly held in Australia.
Prof Grossman is a family law litigation specialist and a professor of law at New York's Hofstra University. Prof Gans lectures on wills, trusts and estates, and is a law professor at the NYU School of Law.
Kim Ledger could not be contacted yesterday. A spokesman at his Perth office said he was on a plane and anything to do with the will was "no one else's business".
Kim's estranged brothers, Heath's uncles Haydn and Mike, had earlier advised Mr Williams to tell his daughter to hire a lawyer after Kim Ledger mismanaged their grandfather's $2.5 million estate.
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{My love is alive : A tribute to Heath Ledger, 1979-2008}
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con mucho amor,
Sú
