The Post-it Note Inheritance Trend—and the Family Fights It Can Leave Behind

Years before Marilyn Boysen died, she devised a simple way of figuring out which of her belongings her daughters wanted to keep: She asked them to put sticky notes on them.Versions of the ritual have been depicted in TV shows like "Gilmore Girls" and "Succession." But Nakia Gray, a Maryland estate planning attorney with 20 years of experience, warns that it works better in fiction than in court.“The Post-it note is usually the heir's wish list, written in the heir's handwriting, and stuck to someone else's dresser,” she tells Realtor.com®. “Legally, it's worth about as much as the sticky pad it came from.”Boysen’s family would eventually learn that lesson the hard way.After her death, a years-old handwritten document emerged that appeared to leave her possessions to a different set of heirs than those detailed in the sticky notes placed by her daughters. The disagreement ended up in court—and more families are finding themselves in the same situation.The number of probate and estate cases entering U.S. state courts rose about 32% between 2020 and 2024, according to National Center for State Courts data. And probate attorneys expect contested estates to become a bigger part of the l...