Yes they can. Look up Marilyn Monroe's estate. She gave the largest part of her estate to her acting coach. She had become friends with him and his wife. She directed that "it being my desire that he distribute these, in his sole discretion, among my friends, colleagues and those to whom I am devoted." In his sole discretion, he decided to keep everything.
After Marilyn died, the acting coach's wife died and he remarried a woman that Marilyn did not know or maybe had met only once. The new wife was 40 years younger than him. When the acting coach died, he left everything to his new wife who now controls the estate. Forbes estimated that Marilyn Monroe's estate is the eighth largest income producing estate.
To avoid a similar situation with your estate, have an attorney review your will to make sure that it disposes of your property the way you want it to. We do not prepare wills. We only handle contested inheritance litigation so this is not a plea to give us work. It is just a cautionary tale that you can think about and avoid by seeing an attorney to make sure that you estate is in order.
Copyright by Robert Ray a Texas inheritance attorney.
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