parent's estate

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Originally Posted by Tybee

Would any of the siblings want to buy him out? Would he be happy selling it to them?

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I want to add since I like picking the scab: several years ago when the farm first came into the hands of DH and his siblings, one of the siblings wanted out. Oh, but the other siblings had to hang onto this farm because daddy wanted! Daddy‘s wishes! Family farm! Little brother! These are all emotional reasons.

But none of them were willing to pony up the money to buy out the one sibling who wanted out. So we had to divide the farm with her portion going to her so she could sell it. And that action reduced the overall value of the property. So, they wanted the farm as long as it didn’t personally cost them anything

You can’t take a clean slice of land out of a whole pie and have the remaining whole be exactly the same value per acre.

By my reckoning these emotional decisions towards this financial asset have cost well over $1 million in the 7+ years the siblings have owned the asset. Brilliant financial management…Not.

on the plus side, DH’s sister and her husband who are managing it all are trustworthy, transparent, and not stupid. so I don’t worry about the decisions they make as far as taxes, renting the farm, etc. and it is their time spent doing this and not mine so I’m not gonna complain about their micro decisions.

So, IL, why does the family want to keep it? I can't remember if anyone is into farming. Does it have any value for the family other than "daddy wants it?" Do people go there for recreation? Does anyone maintain the farm, or is it growing wild? Just curious, as I think about the possible pitfalls of leaving this tiny house to 4 children and 5 grandchildren. I have my own reasons for wanting to be like your DH's father, but I also don't want MY emotions to drive impractical decisions that have no relevance for my children and grandchildren.

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Originally Posted by catherine

So, IL, why does the family want to keep it? I can't remember if anyone is into farming. Does it have any value for the family other than "daddy wants it?" Do people go there for recreation? Does anyone maintain the farm, or is it growing wild? Just curious, as I think about the possible pitfalls of leaving this tiny house to 4 children and 5 grandchildren. I have my own reasons for wanting to be like your DH's father, but I also don't want MY emotions to drive impractical decisions that have no relevance for my children and grandchildren.

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they wanted to keep it for emo reasons.

It is agricultural land that is rented out, very expensive Iowa farmland. Land like this does not sit fallow. DH’s share is valued at $350,000.

No, noone goes there. It’s just flat land covered in corn and soybeans. There are no buildings.

But there’s probably a light at the end of the tunnel in a year when certain drama is expected to get sorted out tho my cynical nature expects there to be another drama that replaces the current drama because as we get older, we get sick and die. Shit happens. More drama among the owners

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Originally Posted by catherine

So, IL, why does the family want to keep it? I can't remember if anyone is into farming. Does it have any value for the family other than "daddy wants it?" Do people go there for recreation? Does anyone maintain the farm, or is it growing wild? Just curious, as I think about the possible pitfalls of leaving this tiny house to 4 children and 5 grandchildren. I have my own reasons for wanting to be like your DH's father, but I also don't want MY emotions to drive impractical decisions that have no relevance for my children and grandchildren.

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I firmly believe your best option is to leave your property in a trust that sells it ( if it turns out that you don’t need the funds ) and divides the money among your children and grandchildren as you wish. You are assuming you will not need the resources represented by this, a big assumption.

But since you aren’t going to do that, getting advice from a “cottage law “attorney in the area is a second best choice I guess. You are indeed making an emo decision.

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Originally Posted by pony mom

Tybee, I feel your pain. Take comfort that it's nearing the end. But of course, you'll have to keep all the records for about 7 years.

In 2020 during COVID, my mom's cousin passed away and I was his executor. He owned a house full of stuff, a garage full of tools, tractors, anything and everything, lots of investments, and an unsellable property in VT. It was all made more difficult because a lot of offices were closed due to the pandemic. Had I known what was involved in being an executor when he asked me if I would do it, I would have agreed IF I could help him declutter his home and get rid of the land in VT. It all eventually got done, but I was still receiving paperwork in 2023.

In April 2024 my mom unexpectedly passed away. My dad was her executor, but being 92, I did all the necessary paper and legal work for him. In Sept. of that year my sister passed away. She was living on her own in OR, was bankrupt, and died without a will. I wasn't able to go out there (I'm in NJ) as I was still working and taking care of my dad but luckily her bankruptcy attorney offered to be the estate representative. Since she was in such debt, her home and everything in it was taken over by the bank. I have no idea what happened to her belongings; there were just a few photos and mementos I would have liked, but I'm grateful that I didn't have to deal with another estate, especially in a different state.

In 2025 my dad passed away. Now I'm a pro at this executor stuff. But what I thought would be simple turned out more involved when I found out he owned MetLife stock. Getting a Medallion Signature Guarantee from my bank was complicated and difficult. Because of this payout, I'll have to file the estate tax return next year too, so that's not over yet. This year I filed eight tax returns!

I'm looking forward to the day when I only have to store my own tax records (personal and trust). I'm fortunate that my cousin invested well, leaving it all to my sister and I (which all belongs to me now). My dad transferred the deed to our condo to my name two weeks before he died, so I'm now financially quite comfortable, retired with a nice home and no money worries. However, I am alone with none of my immediate family members. I'm extremely grateful to be in this situation, but don't have anyone to be executor for me or to leave anything to. Investments will go to animal charities, but the condo and personal belongings....someone will have to deal with all of it.

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Oh my goodness, that is a lot of executorship and a lot of tax returns!!! I know all of this was harder during Covid because were in the midst of that when Dad died. Everything was so hard; courts were pretty non functional for a while.

You must feel exhausted after the last six years.

It's too bad we all saw King Lear, or read Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres, for the Iowa farm version. I'm not a big fan of trusts after seeing one in play in my mom's estate.

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Originally Posted by Tybee

It's too bad we all saw King Lear, or read Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres, for the Iowa farm version. I'm not a big fan of trusts after seeing one in play in my mom's estate.

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I loved Jane Smiley, I was a big fan decades ago and I haven’t thought about her in years. I liked her very first novel, long before she won the Pulitzer prize. I met her over the copy machine in the library where I worked. A Thousand Acres was decent, but Moo is her novel I like best. It is so funny, and so true to life about the territorial fights between the agriculture and the horticulture departments at mythical Moo U.

DH lived that life on that very college campus, being a student in both agriculture and horticulture departments. I had an autographed copy of Moo but I released it into the wild when I got rid of books years ago.

Why don’t you like trusts? We have a trust, DH and I. The idea is that it avoids probate. and the estate’s assets can be dispensed of more quickly without dragging it through public courts.

My in-laws had a trust and that seemed to work just fine. The current farm problem, as I see it has nothing to do with how the assets were structured.

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Originally Posted by iris lilies

Why don’t you like trusts? We have a trust, DH and I. The idea is that it avoids probate. and the estate’s assets can be dispensed of more quickly without dragging it through public courts.

My in-laws had a trust and that seemed to work just fine. The current farm problem, as I see it has nothing to do with how the assets were structured.

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I'm glad your trust works for you. I get why people do them, and I have also seen where they can lead to unnecessary problems and complications. My personal experience recently was very negative.

I know people do them to avoid probate, but in my experience, probate was better than what was going on with the trust. And if the trust is bad enough, you can end up in probate court anyway to litigate the trust.

But the lawyers are always making money on the trusts, that's for sure. And if you had a really big or complicated estate or a sick or disabled child or adult, then great. Unless you had unscrupulous lawyers or guardians or conservators. I did a lot of reading of probate files that featured my mother's professional guardian--and boy, trusts were not protecting anyone. And these were cases with incapacitated adults who actually needed protection.

IN my state, my aunt's state,and my sil's state, nothing was dragged into the public courts-- all the documents about what they actually had, all numbers, were private and inaccessible to the public.

I looked on reddit to see other people's experiences and the first thing I found was in a lawyer forum, by lawyers, and a lot of what I saw was in there:

Trust happy attorneys make me want to punch someone. : r/Lawyertalk

ETA: Probate provides oversight by the courts. Sometimes, you really, really want the protections provided under the law. As someone said on the thread above, clients would be better off in probate than in these badly written trusts.

Finally, if you put beneficiaries on all your accounts, those monies go directly to your beneficiaries, and those assets are outside of probate. That's how we've set things up. That is faster than dealing with the trust would be, and the lawyers are not charging 300-400 dollars an hour to give people what is rightfully theirs.

Sure , the execution of a trust is like the execution of a will—honest, transparant and competent people need to carry it out to be effective.

Our trust is revocable and is set ip to disburse quickly after we expire. The same people will be administering it that would have administered a will. And we do have a “pour over” will for anything that has escaped the trust.

We do have beneficiaries named in our financial accounts but not on real estate. The thng is—We have ten beneficiaries, some of them charitable organizations, and to leave each of them an equal share in real estate would be a complete nightmare to administer. How would any decisions be made? Impossible.

Naming beneficiaries in transferable assets makes sense if you have just a few beneficiaries like a couple of grown children.

For incapacitated people who are beneficiaries of lifelong trusts, that requires a dedicated and extremely responsible honest person to carry it out. Incapacitated people are extremely vulnerable to all sins of humanity: avarice, lust, greed, etc. i suppose a court would provide some oversight but no judge is going to be hands-on in micro decisions unless that judge is the actual executor.

Tybee,, how did your mother come about to have this guardian since she had several able, adult children
. Isn't that an unusual situation?

Thanks to everyone who posted; it looks like 7 years for almost all of these papers, which is longer than I wanted to keep them, but better safe than sorry. Will give my boxes one more go-over and get rid of anything that doesn't fit the "must keep for taxes" or isn't in the "this is interesting family information to know." I already had something like that pop out yesterday that answered a question I had had about how long my mom worked, at what age she retired, so it was good to get that answer and realize she was about a year older than I was when she retired for good.