My grandmother promised that she would pay for our - her grandchildren’s - college educations. But she died and my grandfather remarried. His new wife turned him against his family and he bailed on my grandmother’s promise. Not only did his second wife inherit all his money, even worse, she took historical family heirlooms that would be of no value to anyone besides us. My great great grandfather’s medical diploma that was framed on the wall. Where did it go? I’ll never know. Who does that kind of thing? I can’t imagine. I paid for my own college education ( and it took another 15 years to pay off my college loans).
My father - my grandfather’s son - promised he would never do to us what his father did to the family. So, when he remarried, he set up a trust. In his will, he left his house (which was paid off), his car, boats, his checking and savings accounts and pension to his wife. He loved her, so he wanted her to be comfortable for the rest of her life, which I respect. He told us kids that there was a separate trust set up in his will for us.
My dad assigned his wife as the Trustee of his will and me as the secondary trustee, should she not be able to do it for some reason. When my father died a couple of months ago, we got the will, which said that 50% of the trust assets would go to his wife and 12.5% of the trust would go to each of us; his four kids. (He had told me that the trust was going to be divided just amongst us kids - since his wife got the bulk of his estate otherwise - but nevermind, this is how he finally wrote it, apparently.)
The will is very long and whenever the Trust was mentioned, the reader was referred to “Schedule A” which was supposed to be a list of the assets in the trust. But Schedule A was blank. Attached to the will was a form we were asked to sign that “waived an accounting of the trust.” The letter from the attorney recommended that we sign this waiver in order to avoid the extra costs of a CPA accounting of the trust.
So how do we know what’s in the Trust? We are supposed to trust my dad’s wife, the trustee as well as a 50% beneficiary of this Trust, to be honest with us about what is included. This seemed like a conflict of interest to me.
So I asked for clarification about the assets in the trust. I’m not money hungry… it just seemed weird to me and I’ve never done this before. In response, from my dad’s wife I received a letter full of horrific, paranoid accusations about what a terrible daughter I’ve been. This was shocking and hurtful to me, as I had a good relationship with my dad. She sent a letter to my siblings, accusing me of saying things I didn’t say. My brother wrote to ask questions, and she did the same thing; wrote to all of us, including the attorneys, accusing him of nefarious motives.
I don’t care about the money. Although I would love to get enough money to support my daughter’s college education, I know that wasn’t a given. What I really only care about is getting the pocket knife I bought for my dad when I was 18, that he’s carried in his pocket for the last 40 years. His wife says this is “her property” and she doesn’t have to give it to me.
She is turning my siblings against each other and the insults and accusations are hair raising right now. I feel physically sick when I read it all.
I don’t know what my specific question is. My general question is: do diabolical people like this always win? Do I have to hire a lawyer to make sure this is fair? Does a trustee who is also a major beneficiary get to decide what the other beneficiaries inherit? The attorney who represents the trustee, does he have to be honest and fair to the other beneficiaries?
This whole experience makes me feel like our species deserves to go extinct.
Would love to hear from anyone who can enlighten me about any piece of this process. If it matters, my dad lived in Florida and that is where he set up his will and trust.
