Executors of Leona Helmsley’s Estate to Get $100 Million Payday

Manhattan Surrogate’s Court Judge Nora Anderson has awarded four executors of Leona Helmsley’s estate a total of $100 million in fees. The judge acknowledged that amount is “an enormous sum,” but the ruling also noted that the complexity of the $5 billion estate qualified the payment. Mrs. Helmsley inherited the majority of her estate when her real estate tycoon husband, Harry Helmsley, passed away in 1997.

The case has been before Judge Anderson since early 2016, when the office of the Attorney General – which at that time was Eric Schneiderman – challenged the executors’ request, claiming it was “astronomical” and suggested that it be cut by as much as 90%. Their records showed that the executors spent 15,535 hours on estate matters, making their request for $100 million equivalent to an “exorbitant, unreasonable and improper” rate of $6,347 an hour. Judge Anderson agreed with the executors that an hourly rate cannot “accurately reflect the many varied services executors perform.” The current Attorney General, Letitia James, declined to comment.

The four executors set to each received $25 million in fees are two grandchildren of Mrs. Helmsley, David Panzirer and Walter Panzirer; a lawyer, Sandor Frankel; and friend and business advisor John Codey. Mr. Codey died in 2016 and his estate has been representing his interest.

Mrs. Helmsley left the majority of her fortune to a charity, the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust. Her will also included $10 million each for her grandchildren and $12 million for her dog, Trouble, which was later reduced to $2 million. The trust will bear the expense of the attorney fees, but Judge Anderson noted that Messrs. Panzirer and Frankel are also the executors of the trust, and therefore are not independent.

See Peter Grant, Executors of Leona Helmsley’s Estate to Get $100 Million Payday, Wall Street Journal, August 27, 2019.

Special thanks to Joel C. Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.