An Italian woman with no direct heirs left all her €5 million ($5.4 million) fortune to her Albanian caretaker, completely blindsiding the 10 nephews who were expecting the inheritance.

Maria Malfatti, a descendant of one of the most famous families in Rovereto, a town in Italy’s Trento province, died last November at the age of 80. A descendant of Valeriano Malfatti, a former mayor of Rovereto and vice-president of Vienna’s Parliament, the woman owned a number of valuable assets, including several apartments, a historic building in the town center, as well as significant sums of money kept in bank accounts. However, Maria Malfatti had never been married and had no children to leave the family fortune to, so her nephews stood to inherit everything. Only the woman apparently had other plans, as she decided to leave everything down to the last cent to the woman who had cared for her over the last few years, an Albanian national.

Photo: Melinda Gimpel/Unsplash

It’s unclear what the relationship between Maria Malfatti and her nephews was like, but the woman’s relatives were definitely shocked to learn that they had all been snubbed in favor of the woman who had worked as the octogenarian’s caretaker. After the late woman’s will was read, they contacted lawyer Luca Fedrizzi and filed a case to have the Malfatti fortune frozen, claiming that the late Maria Malfatti had lost her senses due to old age and had been taken advantage of by her Albanian caretaker.

The late woman’s nephews are convinced that the caretaker appointed herself as the sole heir of the Malfatti fortune, completely taking them out of the will. A judge agreed to freeze all assets – considering that the risk of them being sold was too great – while an investigation sheds light on the situation.

This wouldn’t be the first time that someone snubbed their relatives, especially if they had been ignoring them and just waiting for the inheritance to fall in their lap. Earlier this year, a Chinese woman left her $2.8 million fortune to her pets, excluding her three children out of the will because they had neglected her.