That got your attention.

"Oh for heaven's sake. It's Saturday morning. I've barely finished my toast and she's banging on about death, of all things. Really!" is how I imagine some of you responded to that.

Why can't I write about something nice like my baby granddaughter, or finding good quality crap from other people's garbage collection piles, or life with a nearly deaf, nearly blind, definitely demented old dog?

Fair enough.

But I've read way too many contested estate court decisions this week. I feel some obligation to say, in the clearest way that I can, if you haven't yet made a will, do so. If not today, put it at the top of your to-do list for next week.

Otherwise just walk up to your nearest solicitor's office and leave a big, fat cheque in an envelope because one of them is going to pocket a big chunk of your estate anyway, if you don't sort things out while you're alive.

My second bit of strong advice is don't try to settle scores posthumously. Add another nought to that big, fat cheque if you're that way inclined.

And if you're leaving an estate of some substance - let's say, for argument's sake, $6 million - make sure your will is formal, clear, watertight and completed with the assistance of a solicitor experienced in such things.

Otherwise some seriously weird stuff can happen after you die.

Let's consider one case.

In 2013 a NSW man died, aged 65. He left an estate of $6 million. He had never married. He had no children or surviving siblings and his parents were dead. He had two nieces by a deceased brother.

He wrote a will, signed and dated it and slipped it into his Bible but it was informal, probably because it wasn't witnessed. The man, and I'll call him John, appointed one of his nieces as executor.

The NSW Supreme Court granted probate in late 2013.

Things might have ended there, the nieces might have shared the $6 million, except for the appearance of another man, and I'll call him Peter, to contest the will. Peter alleged he had been in a secret de facto relationship with John for 14 years and was entitled to the estate.

The relationship was secret because of their ethnic backgrounds which did not accept same-sex relationships, Peter said.

The 828-paragraph Supreme Court decision that followed - which even the judge described as "unmanageably long" - reads like a confused mash-up of every bad soapie you've ever watched, but with the added bonus of a dead man rolling in his grave somewhere. Fascinating though.

Peter, who astonishingly was a NSW police officer through some of this saga, alleged his secret relationship with John was confined almost exclusively to John's pharmacy where John regularly slept in a little crib area.

Peter said he met John at the pharmacy in about 1999. Peter was married at the time.

The NSW Supreme Court judge who heard this case didn't think much of Peter who was a "highly calculating individual".

"In my view everything is strategic for him: telling the truth is but one of his available options but not necessarily his first option. If he assesses that a false invention will serve him better, then that will be his choice over the truth," the judge said.

And this before Donald Trump became US President and made public dishonesty fashionable. Peter was also "cold, very cold", the judge said.

If you love your family and you haven't made a will, I want you to consider that if things get ugly and end up in court, every one of your family's sad and sorry secrets will be scrutinised at a hearing that's generally open to the public, and the media.

And when a judgment is entered all those sad and sorry family secrets will be on a NSW Government website, available for all to see, including journalists.

In his grand plan to get John's millions, Peter put John's nieces through the wringer.

He also gave awful evidence about what he alleged John said about the nieces, and manufactured a scenario in which John made a will leaving everything to him but the nieces destroyed it.

It might have been a comfort for the nieces to read that the judge found them outstanding witnesses who loved and cared for their uncle and showed "no element of homophobia in their testimony".

It might also have been a comfort to read that "the court simply cannot trust a man with (Peter's) dishonest, inventive capacity".

But this was a very big, very long, very expensive case and all of Peter's allegations about the nieces, while invented, are in the public realm forever more.

This case dragged many people in as witnesses, including a long-time female associate of John's who was extensively questioned about her evidence that John wasn't gay. He wasn't, she said, because the two of them had a bit of a thing going. She's named in the decision. I have no idea what the public airing of that revelation might have led to.

A butcher, a hairdresser and various other shopkeepers in the area where John worked all gave evidence about what they'd observed about John's sex life. Not much, as it turned out, although all involving women, with no sign of a male interest.

The judgment, which included ordering Peter to repay $386,100 in loans from John, is a racy read, with the good people winning in the end. The judge dismissed Peter's claim and confirmed John's final wishes for his estate to go to his nieces. But at quite a cost.