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son, as recipient of the payments from Patricia Low; and (2) to
reflect the fact that Patricia Low had already purchased 25
percent of the agency stock. Sidney Dowell was substituted for
Kenneth Dowell in the codicil because Kenneth was going through a
divorce and decedent did not want his wife to make a claim on the
payments called for in the will. Jan Seigel advised decedent
that he did not think Kenneth Dowell's wife could make a claim on
an inheritance under New Jersey law, but decedent said she really
did not care what his advice was and that she wanted to do it her
way. She wanted to make sure that her daughter-in-law could not
get the payments "in any way, shape, or form". The change of
recipient in the codicil from Kenneth Dowell to Sidney Dowell was
not occasioned by decedent's being upset with Kenneth or by a
family dispute between decedent and him.
Under the terms of the codicil, Patricia Low had to pay to
her father a total of $5,000 per month for almost 10 years, as
her monthly payments under the codicil were $3,750 and one-half
of the $2,500 that she owed under the agreement.
The codicil was written approximately 2 years after the will
was executed. Decedent discussed the codicil with her son in
1990. She said that the provision in the original will by which
he would receive payments from the business was being changed.
Decedent told her son that the reason for the change was that he
had a divorce case pending and decedent did not want to have the
payments be part of a property settlement in his divorce case.
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