Another vote for cut your losses and move on. In my experience it is far better to be happy than to be right, and it is a bad place to be when I am going around angry because all of the bad people in the world are “getting away with it”.
The only people that will be happy if you go down the path of trying to screw over your sister is going to be the lawyers on both sides as they laugh all the way to the bank. Why not skip alll that stuff?
Not long after my mother passed and I was named executor of the estate I put the property on the market where it remained for over a year with no offers.The original appraisal was for $295,000.00, then real estate values began plummeting and I as executor decided that it was in the best interest of all the parties involved to wait until the economy improved .You know how that went.Now the property is valued at $120,000.00 ,six thousand less than the original purchase price 19 years ago.Yes,I had a fiduciary duty to not screw my sisters and that’s exactly what I did ,now it seems as though my sister has screwed herself.So put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Lawyer.
Lawyer.
Lawyer.
Thank you for your input ,I’ll be entering in my book in the chapter titled," Useless Advice"
Unused Advice, not useless
Your mom screwed you, not your sister, and after you spent years taking care of her. Take your third and hope your mom does come to haunt you, because it’ll be your only chance of avenging yourself.
Well, this is degenerating.
My Mother and her sister fought a legal battle over my Grandmother’s estate, and the lawyers got almost all the money.
I understand your desire for justice, I have one, too and it often gets me into trouble.
Don’t let your sister screw you out of your 1/3 by fighting it. It’s sad, but from experience I would settle. 
$40k now and never having to deal with your sorry ass again, or $100K at some undetermined point in the future and dealing with a spiteful executor until then?
I think I understand your sister’s motivation. Can’t say I blame her.
Are we in the pit?
Can’t really tell from here. Busy smoking my pipe.
The estate isn’t children; it’s not a custody hearing. The courts aren’t interested in who would be the best beneficiary for the estate like they would with a custody hearing. They’ll follow the will; absent that, they’ll divide thirds. You can spend money on lawyers who will tell you that if you like, but I wouldn’t bother.
Unfortunately, you are not the sole determinant of “who deserves to get what” simply because you feel you deserve more.
The main decider is the will. If there is one, your mother’s wishes determine who gets what, not yours or your sister’s or your neighbour’s.
Lacking the will, the courts will tend to divide equally. They, again, are not there to salve your feelings or determine who “deserves” anything. If kids are involved, they may make a judgement in the childrens’ best interests, but if you’re talking about dividing amongst three adults, they’re gonna go with thirds. They aren’t interested in how you feel you deserve more than someone else.
Sorry, but that’s how it works. Spending money to fight that is just gonna be money down the drain. You’re mistaking the court’s role - its role is not to distribute estates fairly, it’s to apply the law. It’s not the court’s job to decide who “deserves” what because they said they helped their mom more than someone else did.
Ah.
Good idea.
:offers pipe:
Hey, Candyman, take of hit of this. It’s some good stuff.
I’m baffled at the sense of entitlement here. When my parents die, if they leave me twelve cents, so be it. It is their money.
Oh My!Your wit! The Algonquin Round Table would have been simply green with envy!
Um, well in this case, it’s not Mom’s money, in a variety of senses, but mainly because she is dead and doesn’t own anything. So it’s a question of what will be done with something of value. And in this case the law says that rr’s sister is actually entitled to a third of that value. If the conflict were being discussed anthumously, your enbafflement would be justified.
A bit off-topic, but the title link to this thread on the front page says How can I screw my sister…
I was disappointed.
:smack: So you really don’t think that calling her a liar would be the surest way to make sure she wouldn’t listen to you?
Skepticism is great, but it’s not a very good conversational skill. Sure, it’s good to evaluate what was said. But actually telling someone you don’t believe them rarely works.
I’m far more surprised that no one directly called her on the motivation of “revenge,” something I’ll get into below.
This is silly. The idea that you should disregard what someone you love wants just because they are dead is ridiculous. How can you say you loved them if you only did what they wanted because you were afraid they’d hate you otherwise? It’s when they are not around where you can show your true love.
All this crap about happiness is beside the point. Happiness is a luxury when you’ve dealt with everything else. You can’t truly be happy if you feel you did something immoral to get that way. It will always tug at you until you find resolution of some sort.
While I’m not one for revenge, as it’s a horrible motivation, you went further than discouraging that. Revenge is wrong, but trying her best to do what her mother actually wanted? That’s not only fine, it’s quite noble. And I would propose that she shall feel a lot happier with herself knowing she’s tried everything in her power to do what her mother wanted.
That said, I would never encourage the OP to cross the line into immorality. The old saying is true: two wrongs don’t make a right. And, anyways, the whole idea of doing it out of an ethical obligation goes out the window if you don’t go about it ethically.
Pity that her mother set her up with a legally-impossible task then, eh? The sole person who could have made that goal a reality, the mother, failed to do so.
That’s why she needs to let this go. If her mom was that set on excluding one of her daughters from any inheritance, she could have spent a couple hundred bucks, at most, at getting a lawyer or paralegal to help her in writing up a proper will - or learning (for whatever legal reason, depending on state laws) how hard it might be to disinherit one of your offspring. Instead, her mom apparently* didn’t do that and screwed her “favored” daughter out of tens of thousands of dollars in depreciation on the home and the share that will be going to the unfavored daughter.
*Assumptions, since the original poster is short on real details and long on vitriol.
These situations always baffle me a little. I understand everyone may be suspicious of motivations, and have misplaced anger and old resentments, families are complicated things, to be sure.
But how can anyone not see their anger should be placed on the dead parent who didn’t produce a will, or went around blabbing, what they wanted, without having done so, to only part of the family. The truth could not be clearer that they created the mess and deserve the blame. So I’d advise you to either keep your anger and resentment directed at them, or let it go.
As for the years of caregiving, another source of deep, stewing resentment, it seems, people need to be reminded to embrace their choices from time to time, I believe. No one takes on caregiving, long term, to outshine a sibling, or live rent free.
You take on caregiving because of who you are. Period. No one owes you anything, for doing so. You chose it. Reminding yourself of that, with help to keep you from having misplaced resentments. No one is obligated to support your choices. It’s nice, and kind, if they do, but they are not obligated by your choice, to do so.
Everything you’re ever going to be, you’re currently in the process of becoming. If you choose this course, (trying to screw her over, in retaliation for, her screwing you over), you may wish to look hard at what it is you’ll be ‘becoming’ as a result.