Inheritance/family scuffle

amberino7 · December 2013

My grandmother recently died, very quickly. I moved in with my grandma when I was 10 due to my mothers inabilities to support herself and I. She continued to take care of my grandma until she died. So my mother has lived there 19 years now. Her brother is the executor of the estate. There are also 2 other sisters, so 4 children in all. And four grandchildren total.

All of my aunts and uncle split the (roughly 2+ million) estate four ways according to the will. Now the messy part.

1, my uncle asked my mom to move out 3 months after my grandma died. Despite my mother being close to destitute and with nowhere to go, having not lived on her own in almost 20 years.

2, my mother is TERRIBLE WITH MONEY. She not only blew through my college fund, but much inheritance given to her from her own grandparents, etc. I would say over a million? So understandably living in poverty with her growing up I am very concerned about her ability to make good decisions with this allotment. She's in her 60s with no savings and no retirement and no insurance even. Just this recent inheritance. I asked my uncle to help me set up some kind of fund, or enforce a spendthrift law so that she would get an annuity vs. lump some. He refused, and blatantly said he didn't give a shit. THEN my mom dropped off over 4k worth of christmas presents last week. My partner and I exchanged all the gifts and set up a savings account for her.

3. My grandma's will was rewritten 3 years ago, just after her major stroke. My 3 cousins and I were the only ones removed from the will (my uncle has no children, and cowrote the will). I am not concerned about the money I stood to inherit. I am doing fine. But I do think the conditions were very upsetting. And suspicious.

4. My cousins and at least one of my aunts do not want my uncle to sell my grandmas house. I cannot speak to my mother about it without her crying. The house has been in the family almost 100 years. I know my grandma would not want it sold. My partner and I could buy out at least one relative. I just want to keep it in the family, I don't care which family member lives there, or if it's rented - which would turn a profit.

I've decided not to attend the last christmas in my grandmothers house. I loved my grandmother very much, she raised me. My mother is bipolar. So not only is it upsetting to be there without my grandma, I'm so overcome with anger towards my uncle and my mother I can't bear it. I'm at the point of never talking to my family (except cousins who I am close with) again, due to the property and money issues. Help. I just need some perspective besides my boyfriend "there's nothing you can do".

jtmh2012 · December 2013

Aside from maybe trying to take your uncle to court and contesting the will, there's sadly not a whole lot that you can do.

Erikan73 · December 2013

To help protect your mom you may want to talk to a lawyer to see if there is a way you can become your mom's liason or guardian or something that can give you control over your mom's finances.OK, maybe control is the wrong word to use but something that can give you the right to help out your mom with her finances. Talking to a financial advisor could also be helpful. I'm sure there is some type of accounts that would be low risk that you could invest your mom's money in where she could get a monthly payout from for her to life off. This way she will have money to live on but not have access to it all at once and be able to just blow through it. But with the understanding that any withdrawls beyond the normal scheduled ones need to be co-signed by you.

If moving her in with you and your boyfriend isn't an option, then I would look into other options such as assisted living facilities or maybe even a group home where she could have her own space but there are people there to make sure she eats regularly and takes her meds. I know by me they have different levels of assisted living starting out as simple as a one bedroom apartment with a very basic kitchen. They have staff make sure they take their meds everyday but there is a cafe where meals are available if the resident doesn't want to or can't cook. Plus they have group activites too.

Good luck, unfortunately due to how my aunt handled the money from my Grandmother's estate after she passed, there has been major family issues to the point where lawyers were involved and people taken to court. Now no one is speaking to each other.

Ducktale · December 2013

Does your mom recognize her inability to handle money/herself? Because you can become her financial guardian (this may vary from state to state) if she chooses, but if she doesn't choose to, than you would need it to be court ordered. How bad is her mental illness? Is it bad enough to qualify for SSA disability/other benefits?

Agree with PP. Your uncle can pretty much do as he pleases unless you take him to court, unfortunately, so there's not much you can really do about that. But you can try to help your mom out.

I wonder how the will was able to be rewritten after your grandmothers stroke. I'm more familiar with the healthcare power of attorney's than financial POA/wills. Was she still considered legally competent at that time?

So sorry you're going through this. It sounds so stressful.

Sisugal · December 2013

My parents are deceased as DH's - neither side included grandchildren in the will - just their own children. I so not see that part as a problem.

The executor has to follow legal guidelines. He does not have to consider the feelings nor preferences of those family members who are upset with the choices.

Was your uncle involved with your grandmother's care, responsibilities etc?

YOU need to see a lawyer about your mother and addressing the financial handling of money for the remainder of her life and how to go about that - preferably with your mom's support of a plan that will see that she is cared for thru the remainder of her life. this is not your uncle's role nor should it be.

(You lived in poverty with a grandmother worth more than 2 million??? - Doesn't sound like poverty to me.)

Sisugal · December 2013

My parents are deceased as DH's - neither side included grandchildren in the will - just their own children. I so not see that part as a problem.

The executor has to follow legal guidelines. He does not have to consider the feelings nor preferences of those family members who are upset with the choices.

Was your uncle involved with your grandmother's care, responsibilities etc?

YOU need to see a lawyer about your mother and addressing the financial handling of money for the remainder of her life and how to go about that - preferably with your mom's support of a plan that will see that she is cared for thru the remainder of her life. this is not your uncle's role nor should it be.

(You lived in poverty with a grandmother worth more than 2 million??? - Doesn't sound like poverty to me.)

hoffse · December 2013

I do some estate work. Here's the deal (very generally, since I can't give you real legal advice):

1) As the executor, your uncle gets to call the shots. Whether you think selling the house would be against your grandmother's wishes or not is irrelevant. I'm not trying to be harsh, but I'm trying to give you a clear picture here. She is gone, and your uncle is managing the estate until it closes. And on that point - a lot of courts won't close an estate unless the heirs sell any real property that's part of the estate or the real property is bought out by one of the heirs (via giving up a portion of his/her share). The exception, of course, is if the house is willed to somebody directly - but it doesn't sound like that's what happened here. You can't divide a house 4 ways in any other reasonable way. It's much easier to liquidate and then divide the proceeds. And I'm sorry your uncle asked her to move out, but frankly that's what needed to happen. And allowing your mother to stay in the house for 3 months is pretty generous in my experience. When we are closing estates, we try to get folks out of the houses in 1-3 months after the estate has opened so that the houses can get on the market and get sold.

2) I'm not sure what you mean by your uncle "co-writing" the will. If he is a lawyer, he should not have written the will for her as a beneficiary. That's a massive conflict of interest. That said, if he helped her find an independent lawyer to do the writing of the will, or if he gave her general legal advice (ie: make sure your lawyer puts in a pour over clause) then that's tough luck.

3) Generally you can't manage your mother's money unless she is deemed incompetent by the court system or she voluntarily gives you a power of attorney over her assets/financial affairs.

4) In terms of your mother's cut of the estate, your uncle's only obligation is to write her a check when the estate is closed. He is not under any obligation to set up a special fund for her. Frankly, if an executor came to me and asked if s/he should set up a special fund for one of the heirs, I would advise them not to do this. That could lead to some sort of liability for the executor down the road, and it's not one of the executor's obligations. Lawyers try to keep executors on a pretty short leash so that they are really doing just the bare minimum. It makes things move more quickly and reduces potential liability for the executor.

5) Unless you're really serious about fighting this will, I wouldn't do it. I'm working on an estate right now that could have closed last July. Except one of the heirs took issue with how we were calculating the interest rate on a debt he owed to the estate. Well 6 months and $20,000 in legal fees later he is finally coming around to our way of doing the math. Meanwhile, his debt has accrued another $15,000 of interest (since he didn't let us close it last July), which will be taken out of his share.... and he will also lose his share of those $20,000 in legal fees. It adds up very very quickly, and the more noise you make the more expensive it gets.

$2M is not a particularly large estate, and if I were in your situation I would want my mom to get as much of her share as possible. I suggest staying out of your uncle's way so he can get it done and closed, and then see if you can't find a way to get POA over your mother's financial affairs. Then you could put her share of the money into a trust with you as the trustee, and you could basically give her an allowance out of those proceeds.

Try to remember one other thing: in the United States, absolutely nobody is entitled to a share of an estate except for spouses (except in the state of GA - in GA even spouses can be fully disinherited). Therefore, not one of you has a legal entitlement to anything. An inheritance is best viewed as a true windfall: no expectation, no promise that it will actually happen, and certainly not something to be relied upon. When thought of that way, it helps reduce the squabbling.

amberino7 · December 2013

thank you for your advice..

I wonder what the rush to sell the house is for, since in this particular instance I don't see any future liability landing on my uncle. It seems like a all benefit and no risk to wait to sell it. Meaning everybody would be happy. In this case, selling it so fast, half are very unhappy. Except the lawyer.

To rephrase, my uncle sat with my grandma and A lawyer and made suggestions/told her what to do. At this point she was frail although by no means bed ridden. But moderate dementia, yes. That is my understanding at least. I did not know the will had been edited until she died.

I would not ever assume to be entitled to anything, I am just completely shocked nothing was donated to charity considering my grandmothers career and hobbies. Basically all she did was charity. And the timing of the changes to her will seemed very suspicious. Also that no conditions were put on her daughter, my mother, considering her illness and history.

amberino7 · December 2013

Sisugal said:

My parents are deceased as DH's - neither side included grandchildren in the will - just their own children. I so not see that part as a problem.

The executor has to follow legal guidelines. He does not have to consider the feelings nor preferences of those family members who are upset with the choices.

Was your uncle involved with your grandmother's care, responsibilities etc?

YOU need to see a lawyer about your mother and addressing the financial handling of money for the remainder of her life and how to go about that - preferably with your mom's support of a plan that will see that she is cared for thru the remainder of her life. this is not your uncle's role nor should it be.

(You lived in poverty with a grandmother worth more than 2 million??? - Doesn't sound like poverty to me.)

yes, my uncle was involved in the care and responsibilities of my grandma. For the past five years he's done her mail, bills, etc. and driven her to doctors appointments. He hasn't worked in over 15 years and my grandmother has compensated him while he was checking in on her during the day. My mother did the daily medical stuff and cleaning, changing her diapers etc.

amberino7 · December 2013

I lived with my mom in Santa Cruz until I was 10. We lived in a garage. When we moved in with my grandma we were still poor, just lived in a nice house.

amberino7 · December 2013

Ducktale said:

Does your mom recognize her inability to handle money/herself? Because you can become her financial guardian (this may vary from state to state) if she chooses, but if she doesn't choose to, than you would need it to be court ordered. How bad is her mental illness? Is it bad enough to qualify for SSA disability/other benefits?

Agree with PP. Your uncle can pretty much do as he pleases unless you take him to court, unfortunately, so there's not much you can really do about that. But you can try to help your mom out.

I wonder how the will was able to be rewritten after your grandmothers stroke. I'm more familiar with the healthcare power of attorney's than financial POA/wills. Was she still considered legally competent at that time?

So sorry you're going through this. It sounds so stressful.

Thank you so much. It is nice to hear kind words. No, my mom is for lack of a better description, delusional. She's also fiercely independent and won't accept help or advice from anyone. Despite my pleading and begging as nicely as possible. We'll certainly offer our spare bedroom and bathroom to her, I doubt she'll accept. Most likely...and I hate to be realistic...she'll get swindled into paying too much for a condo OR she'll pay out of her price range to rent. I hope she buys a place. That's why I'm inquiring about the legal actions to get her to have to have an annuity. Since she won't do it by choice.

hoffse · December 2013

OP, I hate to say this but any competent lawyer would have made sure that no lines were being crossed by your uncle being in that room. S/he would have also made sure your grandmother was lucid enough to know her own mind when making those decisions. A lawyer's professional reputation can be ruined if s/he isn't careful about that sort of thing. Seriously, no client is worth running that risk. And a $2M estate isn't nearly large enough to generate the huge billings needed to make dancing on the line a real temptation.

If you still think circumstances are suspicious enough to challenge it then by all means do so. But be aware that it's $$ and all the heirs pay for it proportionally out of their share of the estate.

The reason to sell the house is so the estate can be closed and the heirs can get their distributions. Like I said, an estate can't be closed until all of the assets are liquidated or their futures are accounted for in some other way. Your grandmother did not will the house to anybody directly, and so until it is sold the estate can't be closed. Heirs almost never get money before the estate is ready to close. The partner I work for in the estate practice has been doing this work for 30 years and has only done a partial distribution half-way through the estate process twice in 30 years.

In other words, if you want your mother to get her money, there's every reason to rush the sale of the house.

Re: limiting your mother's access to funds. There are ways to do this, but it would have been more expensive for your grandmother to set this up. Just writing out stipulations in her will wouldn't cut it in most states. She would have had to set up a trust, also.

Re: charities - This tends to be so personal that you never really know how it's going to shake out. Earlier this year I worked on an estate worth over $1B - and there were no charitable distributions in that one. It happens. Often. Keep in mind that a $2M estate split 4 ways is roughly $500K per heir. That's significant but not overwhelming. I wouldn't be surprised if your grandmother wanted to avoid diluting her children's shares.

OP, I'm not trying to make you feel bad about any of this, just to give you a different viewpoint. Only you know if things were really suspicious enough to make noise about it. But if you do challenge the will, I encourage you to think about it hard and to do it with your eyes open.

Xstatic3333 · December 2013

Though not a lawyer myself, this does seem very similar to how mine and H's grandparents' estates were both handled (though H's were able to set up trusts for two kids with poor money habits, which is great). I'm sorry, I know it must be so painful, but I've never heard of a situation like this where the house wasn't sold right away. With H's family, there were also issues with people being asked to leave houses right away (his GPs owned three, and shares them willingly). They were similarly hurt, but I hadn't realized there were legal reasons for this.

As for your mom, if you offered to "help" her house-hunt, would she take you up on it? It sounds like she'll inherit enough to get a reasonable condo outright.

Good luck working through all of this!

MommyLiberty5013 · December 2013

Ask to verify the Payable on Death listings of the accounts your Grandma held. PODs supersede any wills.

Inheritance/family scuffle

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