Another vote for getting permission before barging in and mucking about in a dying man’s personal affairs. You may wind up making things harder for him even though you are trying to help.
If he wants your help, then sure, why not? The children are adults and are capable of telling you to fuck off and good riddance, if it suits them. Be prepared for a less flattering portrayal of the guy you’ve been helping.
Can you elaborate on this? I know a guy who has an estranged relative, although one who is unlikely to have any assets worth inheriting. What bad things can happen to the next of kin when someone dies? You mentioned lawyer’s fees, among other things.
Yes, this. If a stranger told me he’d been internet stalking me based on his peripheral involvement in an estranged relative’s life, my first thought would be “What kind of scam is this joker running?”. My second thought would be “Has this dude been rummaging through my underwear drawer while I’m out?”
about a potential heir whose parent died with a mortgage that was going into foreclosure. The bank is suing every potential heir. It’s a giant fucking mess.
Stuff like that is why I say that the kids need to be told. The hell with feelings. The father needs to short sell or do a deed in lieu of foreclosure, make sure he has a current will, settle all his debts, and rent an apartment. The kids also need to decide who’s paying for funeral expenses. Even if he recovers from the cancer, he still needs to do everything I just said.
I don’t think the kids should be told until he’s within a couple months of dying. However, at that point, it’s the OP’s duty.
It’s also the OP’s duty to make sure the old man has done everything I said. Dying intestate, especially with real estate, ESPECIALLY with not-fully-paid-off real estate involved, is a real curse on your family.
But it isn’t the OPs family. Why should he get so deeply involved in their family affairs? It seems like a recipe for disaster. Especially saying he should “make sure” the guy has his ducks in a row, that isn’t the OPs place nor is it his “duty” as you put it.
Havent forgot about you all…its been busy with far away relatives staying here, plus hit by winter storm euclid.
My plan is to wait till he tells me about the results of the extended CT scan of lungs on Dec 29…plan is to ask if his kids know yet, and listen. Not suggest nor offer.
But your list is all things that the father needs to do, not the kids.
(total disclosure) As one who is estranged from both my parents, it would be pointless for me to know ahead of time if either of them were dying. If we had a good relationship where I could prevail on them to do the right things, like take care of your list, we wouldn’t be estranged in the first place.
You are right, it’s a list of things for the father. However, if the father doesn’t have the money to pay for the funeral, SOMEbody is going to have to.
Speaking of that, the father needs to plan his own funeral ahead of time and make all the arrangements, and hopefully pay for it. He owes his kids that much.
I seriously doubt the kids would prefer to find out AFTER the fact that their father is dead. At least a little advance warning is nice.
And the way I see it is, the OP doesn’t care if he gets chewed out by the kids for contacting them. I certainly wouldn’t give a damn whether they chewed me out. They need telling, if the father is close to death, and that’s that. It’s ESPECIALLY true if he hasn’t gotten his affairs in order yet.
The worst thing that can happen here is that the father dies with no will, an underwater mortgage, no assets, and an unplanned, unpaid-for funeral…with the kids knowing nothing beforehand of any of it.
I read as far as the post by lavenderviolet (28) and I agree with it.
Whether you tell the relatives or not is now your problem. You are in no way responsible for the what other people think about your decision and cannot influence the results of your decision. However you now know what you know and you have to decide what to do with the knowledge. If you can happily do nothing then that is a viable alternative. If, however, you are going to spend the rest of your life, tormented by the fact that you think you should have done something different, then doing nothing is not a viable alternative.
It would be nice to come up with a solution that causes no pain to anyone but you are an innocent bystander in this and should take great care to ensure that any solution doesn’t transfer someone else’s misery to you.
I can’t tell you what would make you feel satisfied, but if it was me I think I would contact the daughter, let her know that he is dying and offer to act as an intermediary if she needed to contact her father without personal contact.
But he isn’t dying. He has a positive prognosis IIRC, that is pretty darn good for cancer. If she really hates her father, it would be a disappointment if he pulled though and survived after you told her he was dying. I would be pretty pissed if I was her to have my emotions again twisted and controlled by the father I purposely cut out of my life.
Yeah, they’d probably take it out of the estate. I don’t think you can legally inherit debt, can you?
At the very least, why hasn’t the OP even bothered to ask his friend about it? If he wants to contact his kids, let him do it himself. In fact, have you considered the possibility that he’s already tried to contact them?
As far as I know, unless you co-signed a loan or your name is on a contract, house note, or car note, I don’t see how a child would be legally responsible for a parent’s debts. That isn’t to say the debt collectors won’t try, but they legally have no recourse AFAIK.
In fact, if a child doesn’t want to be involved at all in any of the funeral planning, estate planning, or any home involved they don’t have to I assume. As harsh as that sounds, they can wash their hands of the whole thing and not get involved at all.
I suppose that if the kids REALLY don’t want ANYTHING to do with the funeral, estate, belongings, etc., then there’s no reason to contact them.
However, I’m not sure that’s a given here, and personally, if I were the OP, and the father actually was close to death, I’d feel like a jerk if I didn’t give the kids some advance warning of the death, etc…
But beyond all that, the much more important issue at hand is making sure the father has his affairs in order. Whoever can make him do that needs to, if he’s not not willing to force himself to do it. If that’s the kids, whatever. It needs doing.
I personally would not want debt collectors suing me over an unpaid mortgage, which DEFINITELY happens to heirs/descendants.
The idea that the kids would rather have absolutely no notice of this situation until they receive the court summons regarding the lawsuit against them is fairly unlikely. And you know what? Even if that’s what the kids THINK they would want now, I bet you that they’d change their minds after dealing with the lawsuit. Nobody wants to get sued, if they can avoid it.
They can sue all they want or threaten to sue, but there is no legal recourse for debt collectors to collect from descendents or heirs. They wouldn’t get a dime, and the children shouldn’t feel obligated to pay any debts their dad incurred. If you read my reference above, the debt collectors can threaten a lawsuit to try and scare you in to paying, but as a child of the decedent you would tell them to stop contacting you and you wouldn’t be responsible for anything.
We have one right now wrapping up. And it was my beloved brother in law (my husband’s brother), who we knew was dying and who never got his will done. Expensive pain in the back end.
I’d wait and see what the prognosis is. If it is terminal, then I would inform. Because my brother in law didn’t want to admit he was dying, some people didn’t get an opportunity to see him while he was alive - they didn’t know, or they didn’t know how bad it was.
There were a few people my brother in law didn’t want to see, but that doesn’t sound like its the case here.
And I’d inform - your friend doesn’t want to face the possible rejection. And if the kids don’t care, then they don’t care. They’ll find out eventually that Dad has died or is dying.
A girlfriend of mine had her mother run out on her at a young age. Later, doing genealogy, she found record of her death just a year before. She was really divided about it - had she found her while she was alive, would she have reached out? - she doesn’t know, but she didn’t have that choice because time took it from her. You can give the kids the choice. The choice they make is theirs.