parent's estate

[littlebittybobby]

okay----i feel your pain, faux. Better hang onto the Family Farm, even if ya hafta buy the spendthrifts out. Because, after all the legal battles, taxes, and everything, all i had left of my bequest was a very, very modest sum. But yeah----i then proceeded ta piss it away on catt & dogg food & old, junk cars & trips to the wreckin' yard! So anyway---how do ya like that for bad mismanagement?

[iris lilies]

okay----i feel your pain, faux. Better hang onto the Family Farm, even if ya hafta buy the spendthrifts out. Because, after all the legal battles, taxes, and everything, all i had left of my bequest was a very, very modest sum. But yeah----i then proceeded ta piss it away on catt & dogg food & old, junk cars & trips to the wreckin' yard! So anyway---how do ya like that for bad mismanagement?

Your saga is preserved on the internet for all to see and is an often cited case. That drama was much like Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, the case in the Dickens novel that drug on for generations and in the end, the attorneys got it all.

[littlebittybobby]

okay----soons i get my gummint ss welfare check, im gonna head down ta the mini mart, gas up, get beer, ciggarettes & lottery tickicks. Wish mee luckk. Yup.

[pony mom]

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.

I've been tempted to shred some of my cousin's estate papers early, but I still have a nagging fear that somehow the IRS will come after me. My accountant has scanned copies of everything I would need, but the fear is still there. Actually, you're supposed to keep it 7 years from the year filed, but one pile is going next year for sure.

My accountant told me that in 2020, the IRS received so many tax returns that they tossed many of them; if you owed, you got lucky. His personal return was probably one of them so we eventually had to refile when I never received his refund. Yet when you're just a bit late with paying them, they're onto you immediately and charging you interest.

Trusts: my cousin set one up for my sister's benefit and I was the trustee. She had bankruptcy problems and was an alcoholic and couldn't be trusted with any money. This made it tricky for me, because he didn't want her to know how much money was in it, or to receive it and waste it. She was on disability and had her cancer treatment covered by the state, so most of her expenses were covered. However, my cousin knew about her debts and stated that the money was not for paying those off. It was tricky for me, not letting her know when the money was available, the amount, etc. For anyone who sets up a trust, be very specific when and why the funds get released, especially if more than one beneficiary is involved. I was lucky that it was only me and her, but money can make people ugly really fast.

[Tybee]

I heard of one case where the person became incapacitated and their child went to court and got appointed conservator, then put assets in a trust that only the child controlled, with terms that the child could withhold any money to beneficiaries on the basis of their behavior. So basically hijacked the inheritance and appointed themselves arbiter of who inherited and when. This was not in line with the clearly executed and recorded will that the person had.

[early morning]

families can be very tangled things. My FOO has never been, but we're pretty chill and don't envy what each other has. DH and his brothers had some emotions running high after his father's passing, but there wasn't much to split up so really more an annoyance than anything. the problem was with the BIL family living with FIL at the time of his passing, and they didn't want to move out because "Dad wanted us to have the house!!". Yes, he did - but they were supposed to be PAYING on it, and they did not. Fortunately FIL had all that documented and with a bit of saber-rattling on the part of the estate lawyer and some push from the realter we hired at their request, the house was sold. The realtor went to their church and they actually thought he'd side with them and refuse to list it. Of course he did not, so that embarrassed them as they'd told all their churchy friends that "Dad had moved in with us" - NO, they moved in with HIM and stiffed him for whatever they could get- and soon everyone knew it, they actually changed churches after that. They finally moved out and all was settled. They're still annoyed, 15 years later, but they have never had any money, and there's no way they would/could have made the payments on the home-equity credit line FIL had used for updating the house, let alone the taxes and insurance on it. The house WAS the estate, and we were able to sell it and split the money evenly, so we all got a little something, instead of it all going down the drain. And I'm a small enough person to actually be a tad gleeful about how it turned out, to be honest.

[Tybee]

I think real estate is the most difficult thing to inherit. Especially with multiple heirs. Our neighborhood has inherited lakefront cottages and the adult "children", the second generation, are now in charge but I'm not sure what happens next with their inheritors. And something like Iris Lily's farm--that's like inheriting a business.

[catherine]

I think real estate is the most difficult thing to inherit. Especially with multiple heirs. Our neighborhood has inherited lakefront cottages and the adult "children", the second generation, are now in charge but I'm not sure what happens next with their inheritors. And something like Iris Lily's farm--that's like inheriting a business.

I'm inspired by some of my in-laws. My DIL is part of a large family--the grandfather built a cabin/camp/cottage on a small lake in the Adirondacks. It's a wonderful retreat. Now, the third generation is tending to it. The local people go every spring to open it up, do plantings and other maintenance activities. People sign up for times they want to use it in the summer. It's a pay-what-you-can model, more or less. Just recently, they've formed an LLC to iron out all the agreements and shared responsibilities. There is never any discord, from what DIL tells me. That's what I'm hoping for.

My SIL has a similar situation. Not quite as organized or drama-free, but it's still in the family and sharing it has worked out pretty well. I'm not sure what happens beyond three generations, though. When does it get to be too many inheritors to manage it properly?

[Tybee]

I'm inspired by some of my in-laws. My DIL is part of a large family--the grandfather built a cabin/camp/cottage on a small lake in the Adirondacks. It's a wonderful retreat. Now, the third generation is tending to it. The local people go every spring to open it up, do plantings and other maintenance activities. People sign up for times they want to use it in the summer. It's a pay-what-you-can model, more or less. Just recently, they've formed an LLC to iron out all the agreements and shared responsibilities. There is never any discord, from what DIL tells me. That's what I'm hoping for.

My SIL has a similar situation. Not quite as organized or drama-free, but it's still in the family and sharing it has worked out pretty well. I'm not sure what happens beyond three generations, though. When does it get to be too many inheritors to manage it properly?

I'm impressed that they are at generation3! I remember talking to someone in line at the grocery in Traverse City and they came back each summer for 10 days from California but I think they were only generation 2.

[catherine]

On another note, yesterday, speaking of estates, we finally got around to clearing out BILs stuff out of his car. Basically although he slept in an apartment, he lived out of his car. His situation makes me so sad. His life was in that car. Underneath the mess of cans and clothes, and other junk, there was:

A photo album of his wedding day (his marriage lasted less than a year. She was here on a green card working as an au pair when she met BIL. She walked out on him unexpectedly and that was that.)

His autographed baseball collection.

Another photo album of the family through the years.

A water-ruined 1981 high school yearbook.

Boxes of skin care from a company that he "invested" in. He was in love with a young girl he worked with. She had a side gig selling for a MLM company. My BIL pretty much funded her directorship. Of course, the attraction was completely unrequited, and 10 years later, he still had boxes of that product in his car.

Resumes

A copy of the bible and The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale.

Anichni silk sheets. When he worked as a sales clerk for a very high end store in NYC, he was named Sales Person of the Month and given a full set of these sheets. It was his only recognition he ever got for "a job well done." This was probably somewhere in the early 2000s. He was later fired. He kept saying, "someday when I have a nice place and a new bed, I'm going to use those sheets." He never did use them.

There is so much that makes me sad about his whole life and how it ended. The stuff in his car said it all, really. And he was not a "bad" person. He had his quirks and certainly could annoy you, but he was, OTOH, one of the funniest people I ever met. Of course, his self-deprecating stories were the funniest. He could go on riffs of these situations he found himself in that would have our stomachs aching. He was also very intuitive about thoughtful gifts that he knew we would enjoy. My kids loved him. His dog loved him.

And he never complained. Whenever he was sick, people had to tell him to get to the ER. He knew he had to give up smoking and he did it without making a big deal about it. When he had to give up drinking, he did. No fanfare. I think he felt undeserving of attention.

I keep thinking we should have paid more attention, but in another stroke of bad luck for BIL, his demise came when we were throwing all our attention on DD's, DIL's and DH's cancer diagnoses. There wasn't any energy left over for BIL, who had no other support but us. It makes me very sad.