Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Pennsylvania

Re: beneficiaries

Your query is much too indefinite to provide a response. Generally, you can not disinherit a spouse. I do not know what you mean by secondary beneficiary. If you are talking about a will providing it is valid, the wife can elect to take against the will if she is left insufficient assets. This would be as if there was no will. If you are talking about non probate assets, assets that pass outside of a will and named specified beneficiaries then the answer may be different. This is to complex an issue to provide definite response to without more information. Your father should seek the advice of an attorney to further determine whether what he is trying to accomplish is able to be done.

Re: beneficiaries

You and your family cannot write a will for your father. If he already has a will, his property will go according to the will. As Mr. Weinstein said, if your father's wife is not left the share she would be entitled to under the intestate law, she can seek to have that share given to her.

Any other property, such as life insurance or pensions usually go as directed to beneficiaries. Those are not actual property of your father's, they are contracts and your father's naming beneficiaries make those beneficiaries entitled to the insurance or pension proceeds.

If your father is so sick that he is not legally competent to make a will, then it would be too late to have a new will. If he did not already have a will, the intestate law will govern who gets his assets.