Priscilla Presley has challenged the “authenticity and validity” of an amendment made to Lisa Marie Presley’s will, which would see her replaced as an overseer of her daughter’s estate.
In a recent court filing, Priscilla disputes a 2016 amendment to Lisa Marie’s Living Trust that replaced her and a former business manager with the US singer’s children – Riley and Benjamin Keough.
A living trust is a form of estate planning that allows a person to control their assets while alive, but have them distributed if they die, and can serve the function of a will if a separate will is not filed.
Lisa Marie, the only child of Elvis, died on January 12 at the age of 54 and was laid to rest at her father’s Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 22.
Documents filed last week in Los Angeles and obtained by the PA news agency noted that Priscilla and Barry Siegel had been placed in charge of the living trust in 1993 and reaffirmed in 2010.
“After Lisa Marie Presley’s death, Petitioner (Priscilla) discovered that a document existed pertaining to be an amendment to the Trust dated March 11, 2016,” the documents stated.
“The purported 2016 amendment removed and replaced Petitioner and Barry as both current and successor Trustees of the Trust with Lisa Marie Presley as the current Trustee and naming Lisa Marie Presley’s daughter, Riley Keough, and son, Benjamin Keough, as successor co-Trustees of the Trust upon Lisa Marie Presley’s incapacity and/or death.”
The filing added that there were “many issues surrounding the authenticity and validity” of the amendment.
Among the issues were a failure to notify Priscilla of the change, a misspelling of her name in a document allegedly signed by her daughter, as well as a signature by Lisa Marie that was “inconsistent with her usual and customary signature”.
The filing states that Siegel had already intended to resign from his position, which would have left Priscilla and Riley as co-trustees.
It asks the judge to declare the 2016 amendment as invalid.
It comes after Priscilla said she had been “touched” by the words of fans following the death and subsequent memorial of her daughter.
At the public memorial on January 22, Lisa Marie was remembered as Memphis’s “precious jewel”, with her mother reading out poems written by Lisa Marie’s daughters.