Settling the estate. How do you divide what's left?
Well, I am at the point of settling mom's estate. We've all read the stories here of siblings that didn't help, ones that stole from her and others that took advantage. I am in charge of disbursing the money remaining. (I was an owner on her account and I am beneficiary to her life insurance.) Mom did leave a well but there are no assets to probate. This is the point where I could say to siblings - you did this or didn't do that - and decrease their share of the estate. I did, in fact, discuss this with mom prior to death and she said divide equally. It just galls me to do that with the sibling that stole over $8000 from her in the past two years and conned her out of her house, another sibling who had her sign land over to her, and the ones who never visited or lifted a finger to help. I've read all your stories. How did YOU divide what was left?
- pay yourself for administration. If you are not going to probate, then I would call the courthouse to see what the costs are for probate. Then you pay yourself that full amount as you are saving the "estate" those costs alone. Then for the amount to pay for your "administration", well the probate attorney said to me either you pay yourself & do the the work or you pay my office for me & my paralegal to do the work…..so I did a lot of the work (almost 4 years full run probate too for 1 of my aunts). The amount was based on the percentage of the known estate at the beginning, so if mom has 50K in savings that all would be in her estate and a home with assessor value of 100K, then her known estate is 150K and you can pay yourself off the top 15%. Then when everything is done and final, final, final and there is funds left then you can pay yourself an additional 5% (so your administration fee is 20% of the estate). This is what we did and I was told is somewhat standard of an approach especially if the executrix has any education and is themselves a professional.
About the worthless siblings, this is totally a hornets nest. IF & totally IF you can prove with documentation the 8K and house transfer; and then the land transfer, then I would deduct the amounts from their share. Like you get the documents of the filings from the courthouse that show the registered transfer of the ownership of the land and you get the tax assessor records for the land at the time of the transfer. As administrator you have to do all this anyways and you want to clearly show with documentation why worthless bro #2 & even more worthless bro # 3 had their share reduced. Then when you distribute the funds, everybody gets a folder with all those details in it. They will still be pissed but the reasoning will all be out there as to why.
Most courthouses have all their records available as an on-line download for minimal costs too. You need to find the parcel number for the properties as this is the key for all info. Really once you have it, you can quickly get what you need to document everything on all real property the mom had. Most counties do this for the more recent past - like 10 years. Older than that they research and mail to you. Keep track of the costs as those are expenses to be reimbursed for too.
She gave willingly to the other siblings of her assists right? So do what she wanted and let it all go.
What would be the point of having a will if it's not executed? What was the point of having that discussion with your mom before her death? So you know what she wants done, and so you can carry it through.
If siblings are guilty of theft or coercing your mom or whatever, it's on their heads. Your mom still loved them, decided not to press charges, and so it's really out of your hands.
But you can certainly learn lessons from all of this when you prepare your will, if you haven't already done so.
We've had our wills for years. We have two children. Everything will be divided equally, even though my daughter (who lives five minutes away) does more for me/us than my son does. And they both know what's in the will. It's how we want it. :)
Sharon
just sayin , ill be ok . dont cry for me -- argentiiiinaaa ..
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