Woman Claiming to Be Prince’s Wife Steps Forward

‘Wife’ says she has marriage license and a will. Our California probate lawyer explains more below.

The fervor caused by people claiming to be heirs of Prince has died down. However, a new claimant has come forward with a marriage license and a will, according to TMZ in “Prince Woman Warns Estate … Step Aside, I’m His Wife.”

The woman, Claire Elisabeth Elliot, claims that she can prove her status as Prince’s wife with a marriage certificate and a will. She is requesting that the current estate administrator be dismissed and that she be put in charge and named the sole heir. It is unlikely that the woman’s claims are true.

She previously filed to be elected the President of the United States.

It should not take too long for the estate to dismiss this claim, but the lesson is that the estate should not have to deal with these claims at all.

By not having an estate plan, Prince left his estate vulnerable to these claims. Because the estate has to go through probate, it is easy for anyone to file a claim against it.

It would have definitely been much harder for these claims to have been made had the estate been kept out of probate. Without probate, people would have had to start lawsuits on their own rather than simply file a motion in the probate case.