Attorney and Estate TAX question..

[TerryinMD]

LazyK,

Your father passed along some sage advice prior to his passing. He was a good and kind man for doing that. You can tell he was not thinking of himself. Your are a lucky man for that! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

My father passed away 10 yrs before my mother and neither my brother or myself had the presence of mind to have my mother re-examine their will. It gets better. A year before my mom died, my brother passed away. I still did not think about the will or any of the other legalities. Then mom passed away.

I finally thought about looking at her will. A new executor was never declared. So, the administration of the estate was left to me and my nephew and niece as co-administrators. I will not get into any details but it has been a virtual nightmare. Especially since I'm about 200 miles from my home town.

So, my advice is to make sure all i's are dotted and the t's are crossed. Make sure you discuss wills and the legalities with your parents and get it right from the start. I know that I will have everything in order for my wife and kids. It's something that needs to be addressed and readdressed each year as we get older and have more assets.

Terry

 

[LazyK]

We can only assume that when the Commander of the Masada Defense Corp was asked, by the annoying Fermiculite press, as to 'how the battle was going?'.....he replied with complete candor: "Aside from a couple of days without a swim, our Boys can still make those low-landers eat the words: PAX ROMANI...!" Remember, "...Then God gave Noah the Rainbow Sign...LISTEN UP! No more water...IT'S THE FIRE NEXT TIME!" I envy and respect your encounter with Masada. You were truly on a powerful focal point of unique energy. How else did they do what they did?Guts Ball. Thank You for your postback.

 

[Harv]

Chip -

Thank you for the condolences, and may I extend the same to you and others here who have recently lost a loved one.

It sounds like your father was an amazing man, and I am so happy for you that he was able to express such meaningful thoughts so near the end. One of my biggest sorrows is that I was unable to hold a real conversation with my mom for her last couple of years. It never occurred to me that her mind would leave us so much sooner than her physical self. Count your blessings.

Both of my parents preached that they would never be a burden, and that all matters of inheritance were taken care of, and in their hearts I know that they thought this would be the case. I realize now that neither of them had a clue about probate, living wills, etc., and none of us saw Mom's dementia coming. I guess life never ceases to dish out lessons, and sometimes they come just a little bit late.

My sister and I were named as co-executors of Mom's estate, but my "evil" sibling was quick to sign all administrative duties over to me. That signing came immediately after the conversation that ended with, "You mean probate doesn't just happen? You have to do something?"

So now I am low on the probate learning curve, have hired an attorney and am consumed with the "best and fairest way" to divide the monies and other personal property. As I'm sure is the case with others of you out there, unforseen issues have already started cropping up (I will spare you the details here), and it's going to be a long haul before it's over. /w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif

TBN has always been my tractor support group, and I'm finding that the support extends far beyond our toys and machines. Don't know how you did it, Muhammad, but you've created a brain and soul trust that I've not seen anywhere else on this planet.

 

[Richard]

Chip,

I acquired a postcard on my visit to Masada and looked for it last night (my visit was 17 years ago). Guess what I found!

The photo is of the great ramp the Romans built in their endeavour to conquer Masada. I think the picture speaks for itself as to the Romans resolve and the incredible work they did....do you think they had a FEL on Orange/Blue/Green/other?? /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Richard

 

[glennmac]

Must have been a lot of probate problems after Masada. Especially since life insurance policies exclude automocide.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

...automocide..

Ok Glenn... you hooked one...

What's automocide...?

 

[cp1969]

Just like everything else, you have to shop for a lawyer to do probate. If you don't, you can really take it in the shorts.

When Mom passed away, I ended up taking care of her estate, even though I am the youngest child. I intended to cut the lawyers out of the picture, as no one was contesting anything, but the way the system is set up, I was required to post a surety bond if I was not going to use a lawyer. It turned out I found a lawyer who did the work for less than the bond would have cost me, but only after shopping. The quotes I received ran from $40,000 from our 'family friend' lawyer to $900 from a complete unknown. I used the $900 lawyer and had no problems whatsoever.

One possible reason I might suggest as to why this person is dragging their feet is this: Settling the estate represents closing the book on someone's life. I went through the same thing. I could not bring myself to close out Mom's account that she and I held jointly. I distributed proceeds out of it to everyone who had anything coming, but have never taken my part and closed it.

 

[glennmac]

<font color=blue>What's automocide...?</font color=blue>......It's a neologism, which I am sure will make Webster before the end of the century. A prefer "auto" to "sui" because the latter is so often confused with the Chinese Sui Dynasty, which succeeded the Han Dynasty in 581 A.D. (I don't do this trendy CE and BCE stuff. And whatever happened to Peiping?)

 

[MChalkley]

Peiping? Wasn't he the boy who could fly?

 

[kevincook]

My wife and I had wills, living wills, healthcare proxies, etc done a couple of years ago. I'm glad we did it but even this wasn't simple. I called our 'normal' attorney and he referred us to three other attorneys that specialized in estate planning. Of the three specialist I was only happy with one of them. Our primary reason for doing this is to protect our kids. I wanted to make sure that they would be taken care of financially so I thought up several scenarios of things that might go wrong and asked the attorney's how they would handle this. Only one knew immediately how to deal with the problems.

For example, I asked what would happen if I was in an accident with say a school bus and killed a bunch of people (heaven forbid) and it was absolutely MY fault. How would I provide money to my kids that wouldn't have any way of possibly getting caught up in my estate that was decade long law suit. The kids would be grown by that point. To make a long story short we set up several trusts inside and outside of the will that will handle all of these problems.

I like to think I'm not the dumbest guy on the block and I have never run across a legal document that I couldn't read and understand. I would always the an attorney to tell me what it said just in case...but I could understand it. But this will is the most complicated thing I have ever seen. I don't think I understand even one single sentence in there! I had the attorney spend three hours going over the meaning line by line before we signed.

BTW, the attorney also thought of all kinds of potential problems that I never would have thought of. So my advice is keep looking until you find an attorney that really impresses you and get your affairs in order the the ones you love. We are in our mid-thirties and I'm glad we did it just in case.

Best of health to everyone and God Bless.