2024-09-06 13:23:31
After billionaire Erwin Müller adopted hunting friends in order to disinherit his son, a dispute also broke out with the adopted children. They are now supposed to give up their names.
The drugstore founder Erwin Müller apparently wants to cancel the adoption contract with his heirs and thus persuade them to delete the name Müller. In return, the adopted children are demanding 3.5 million euros, reports “Bild”. The dispute between Müller and his heirs has a long history.
According to Bild, the Drogerie Müller founder had a falling out with his only biological son Reinhard in 2015 and wanted to avoid having to leave part of his fortune to him. The son would have been entitled to a mandatory share of 700 million euros, and Erwin Müller probably owns a total of 2.7 billion euros.
As a result, the drugstore founder apparently came up with a plan. He and his wife Anita agreed with three hunting friends to adopt the child. They waived their legal share but received other financial benefits in return. According to the heirs, this was apparently not enough. They sued their adoptive father to have their waiver of their legal share declared invalid. But they lost in court in May – and are now apparently stuck with 1.2 million euros in legal costs.
“We regret the adoption. Today we know that Erwin and Anita only adopted us to harm Reinhard. They always told us that he was evil and wanted to destroy Erwin’s life’s work. We wanted to help him with a friendly service,” adopted son Andreas Müller now explains to “Bild”.
Now the entire adoption is to be annulled, and the adopted children are to drop the surname Müller that they took after the adoption. “We have nothing against it, but there is one condition: the adoption will be annulled in return for payment of an appropriate amount. It cannot be that the Müllers are the big beneficiaries and we end up with a big financial loss,” explains Andreas Müller.
The adopted children apparently want 3.5 million euros for this, also to cover the legal costs incurred, as their adopted son Andreas explains: “We won’t shell that out of our own pockets. It really hurts us and is unfair.”