A handwritten will of Aretha Franklin enabled her sons to take possession of her real estate. The decision was made as a handwritten will from 2014 reached the hands of a judge, which found between couch cushions.

The ruling came Monday four months after a Detroit-area jury said the testamentary document was valid under Michigan law, even though it was poorly written and had many illegible points. Franklin had signed it and put a smiley face on the first letter of her name.

The new testament abolishes an older one that was found in 2019 and was drawn up in 2010. Kecalf’s son is the one who inherits the suburban Detroit property, which was valued at $1.1 million in 2018 but is now worth more.

Her other son, Ted, was given a house in Detroit, which sold for $300,000 before the wills appeared.

“Teddy asks for the money from the sale“, according to the American media, Charles McKelvey, Kecalf Franklin’s lawyer, said.

Aretha’s third son Eduard will receive another house that the singer owned. In total, Aretha owned four homes when she died of pancreatic cancer in 2018. The discovery of the two handwritten wills months after her death led to a dispute between the sons over what their mother wanted to do with her real estate and other assets. data.

One of the properties, worth more than $1 million, will likely be sold and the proceeds divided among her four sons, as no heir was named for it in her 2014 will.

“This was an important step forward. We narrowed down the rest of the issues,” McKelvey said.

There is still a dispute over how Aretha’s musical assets will be divided, although the will appears to stipulate that her sons would share the proceeds.