you say that “you have to sell the property”. are you then able to make the decision how much and to whom it sells? assuming you don’t really need the money, find some deserving soul and give them a VERY good deal on the house!
And then the court will be powerless to order the OP to pay her sister the difference between the fair market value of the house and the amount received from the sham “sale” out of the OP’s own personal funds! Muhahaha…It’s brilliant!
There’s a lot of truth in this post. I’m currently dealing with something similar. I moved cross-country to look after my mom when she got sick. My brother, who never moved out of mom’s house or had a job beyond a paper route, is getting the lion’s share of the estate. Some of that may be by accident.
Let it go. Your mom could have gambled everything away or given it to charity. Anything you receive is a gift.
Doesn’t that require losing her own inheritence just to spite her sister?
My point was that if you sell a $120K house to a confederate for less than the house is worth, the court can find the OP liable for the difference between the FMV of the house and the amount received in the sham sale as well as undo the transfer of the property as a fraudulent conveyance or impose a constructive trust/equitable lien on it in favor of the sister.
No, because when they’re dead, there is literally nothing you can do which will make them happy. Our relationships with the dead are entirely one way. If you feel that carrying out your dead parent’s wish will make them happy and prove that you really, really love them, what you’re doing is making yourself happy.
I both love and respect my elderly father. It’s quite possible that he will request that I, after his death, continue to self-publish the memoir of his Navy years. Should he ask it, I will assure him that of course, I will do just that. Once he is gone, I will archive the manuscript and one copy of the book, possibly post the contents online, but otherwise not seek to promote it. Why? Because as much as I love and respect my father, he says some very, very hurtful things about his first wife in it, and I have no desire to inflict pain on my half-siblings who are and will probably be very much alive for years to come. Also, the man cannot use a comma properly to save his life, and as an English teacher, I cannot find it within me to promote shoddy punctuation.
This is just silly. Happiness is no luxury. It is what humans strive for every day of their lives. Happiness is neither moral nor immoral. Many evil people have been delightfully happy the balance of their lives, and many good, virtuous people have lived their entire lives without knowing happiness. Beyond the vicissitudes of sheer survival, happiness is primarily a decision. Sometimes, it’s worth sacrificing happiness for a nobler end. Other times, putting one’s feet up and stuffing one’s face with Doritos while watching trash television is paradise, and not selfish, base, or ignoble.
I agree with you that revenge is a horrible motivation, but trying one’s best to follow a dear departed’s final wishes is not an inherently good act. What if Mom’s final wish was that you kill all her pets and bury them with her, even though they have years of life left and you have the means and disposition to care for them? What if, instead of telling Rebecca to keep the entire estate, she also added “and kill your sister! She’s got it coming!” What if, instead of something patently immoral, it was just something unreasonable or unlikely, like climbing Mount Everest or building a memorial scale model of the Taj Mahal out of Q-Tips?
Rebecca has a choice: to invest her irreplaceable time and mental energy into advocating her mother’s spoken but not legally codified final wishes and by doing so, also cause harm and aggravation to her sister OR cut her losses, sell or otherwise finance the house, pay her sister off, and move on with her life.
The trouble with the former option is that she is just as likely, if not more, to harm herself as her sister, and there is no guarantee at all that her sister will experience any negative consequences. If her mother’s final wishes were so very important, well, her mom should have put them in a legally recognized form that would enable Rebecca to grant those wishes. Since she didn’t, either it really wasn’t that important, or Rebecca’s mom was fucking with her.
Rebecca, seriously, write yourself a nice little short story wherein your sister is devoured by rabid weasels over the course of a week. Make a voodoo doll and inflict every horror and indignity you can think of on it. Take out a personal ad in your sister’s local newspaper and say “YOU SUCK!”. Then, let go of it and move on. With the kind of determination you have invested in this, you could start a teapot factory and revive the economy.
It might helpt o realize the pain involved in havign such a terrible relationship with one’s own Mother. I don’t know the story, of course, but it seems to me that your sister may already have suffered more than you realize.
Oh, dear OG.
When I saw this in the list of thread titles, all that it showed was
How can I screw my sister
Yeah, this thread is nowhere near that good. And the OP isn’t cooperating in making it any better.
Also guilty.
Well, anyone named Inigo Montoya belongs in a thread about revenge, that much is obvious.
a. Similar thoughts to what? Wanting to screw someone over? Never.
b. It was not a summary judgment, it was a judgment following trial in January 2008 and it was modified several times. (The current status and how it came to be so I decline to elaborate on publicly, except to say that the issue is not yet final.)
Exactly. The executor has a legal obligation to be fair in all dealings with the estate. I’m surprised the judge has not replaced her; likely the other sister’s lawyer asked for that. Since there’s no evidence of malice in the actions so far, just prudence in waiting to sell, obviously he’s giving her a chance to prove she’s still fair.
Any hint of lowball or other inappropriate conduct and I’m sure the judge will jump in and won’t be as kind.
I feel like I can address the haunting part of it, which at the least can have a psychological effect and in some can cause life long troubles.
It appears to be a conditional curse, but if you are forced to give her money by the legal system you don’t fulfill the conditions and there is no claim for the haunting.
There are probably lots of fun stuff you can do on this end if you care to look into it.
Good luck
That is a great thing you’ve written there, phouka. So worth remembering when the urge to get even becomes uppermost.
In California, at least, there’s all kinds of things built in to prevent that.
Yeah. This is giving me flashbacks of when my Aunt was dying. I didn’t look after her for years, like in the OP. It was less than half a year. But she did have a similar request.
My Aunt had lived alone for most of her life, then had married someone just before she retired and moved more than 500 miles away. For maybe ten years or so before her troubles started, I’d see her for a few hours every December. She made sure that we went out somewhere because Bill didn’t like having strangers in the house.
He was older than she was. By about the third year I visited, he was in a wheelchair. I basically didn’t know him at all, and he wouldn’t have recognized me.
When she was hospitalized, I was the only person able to go help. She and Bill were both terribly hard of hearing, but both resisted hearing aids. He had become very weak and needed home care while she was gone, which I arranged.
She couldn’t keep track of anything and was terrified of the hospital. I stayed with her as much as possible. When things were stable enough, she was released to a care facility. There, she became set on two things: going home and rewarding me for my efforts by giving me her house. She didn’t like Bill’s son and didn’t want him to inherit it. I was supposed to talk to Bill and tell him that she said he was supposed to write a will leaving me the house.
Bill wasn’t taking her illness well. She had been the one who looked after him. He could barely hear and was easily confused. I was not going to scream at this white-haired, wheelchair-bound, palsied stranger that he was supposed to give me his house because his wife didn’t like his son. Not going to happen.
I did arrange for my Aunt to get hospice care at home once it was obvious that she wasn’t getting better. She didn’t talk about the will much once she was home. And she never mentioned it to Bill. She was leaving that as my job. I said I wasn’t helping her because I expected anything. Also that I understood what she wanted. And that everything would be fine.
I never said no, or are you crazy, because that would have set her off and she had enough to be unhappy about. Of course, she had no will. Bill lived for a year and a half after she died and their house went to his son. No one had to wonder what Bill intended, because he had a will. I never said a word. Trying to do what my dying Aunt wanted would have been wrong and it would have been futile.
It was sweet of her to think of me. But it wasn’t so sweet that she was prodding me to cause other people grief. Especially when it was grief that she wasn’t willing or able to deliver herself. Double especially when it had not the least shred of legality to back it.
Good for you.
Yes, taking care of their will is the sole obligation of person making that will. Any pushing or prodding by anyone else (particularly a major beneficiary) is likely to be seen as undue influence. If you had brow-beaten Bill to change his presumably already-written will to give the house to you, the son’s lawyer would have had a field day with that - especially if your aunt remained passive and left the job to you, especially if (likely) there was nobody else around to hear the whole exchange and verify your version.
As the old joke goes, you can choose your friends, you can’t choose your family. Anyone who really wants to redirect their estate has the sole and personal obligation to do so themselves. My attitude is that nothing of my older relatives is mine. Whatever I get is a gift from the blue. With modern medicine, typical life expectancies are pushing into the 80’s and 90’s, meaning most children will be past 50, possibly past 60 before they see anything from their parents’ estate; with blended families and remarriages, it’s not surprising that estates have become a lottery - which spouse kicks off last and leaves all the goodies to their side of the family?
More likely the family home will be sold to pay for nursing home care.
I had something similar, a co-worker who mentioned how he was trying to figure out his and his new wife’s wills. He was a prudent saver, their new (retirement) home was primarily from his savings. Under Canadian law, it was 1/2 hers; there was no simple way to will it to his children, not hers if he died first. In the end, they both signed a letter along with their wills stating their intention that whoever died last, the house proceeds would be split 50-50 between his and her kids.
I pointed out that regardless, if she remarried he new husband would be entitled to the house; nothing would stop her fom changing the will after he died; the house could be sold and all the proceeds used to pay for a nursing home (which was OK. he just wanted the estate divided fairly).
In the end marriage is a leap of faith that all will go right and each spouse will be honest and faithful. At least these two were willing to work through the “what if I get hit by a bus” scenarios and write wills. Many people don’t feel right even considering death - which is probably why we end up with the OP’s dilemma, that mama never made a will.
You are a good, decent, kind soul. It is an honor to know you.
If the quit claim deed was prepared prior to your mother’s death, it ‘should’ have been recorded in the Recorder of Deeds Office, on the date it was notarized. However, there is no legal obligation to hold a Deed, for later recording, though unwise to do so.
Saying that, if this is the only real property in our mom’s estate, I see problems from other prospective beneficiaries. If you did not record, upon notarization, the the other beneficiaries can contest the will, and deed.
I will not tell you how to fix this, but I will say that just because you were identified as administrator (ix), in the deed, does not make it invalid. I do not think a new deed should have been made. All it said is that your mom made the deed, probably, before she drew up her last will and testament. The deed she signed, with the administratrix identification, should have been recorded. Also, the fact that the term administrator is used incorrectly, in my opinion, would give rise to the court adjudicating a law suit on the deed issue itself.
I get the feeling you want all the assets from your mom’s estate, and want to cut your sister out. Under the law, however, your sister is an equal beneficiary to all the assets,…minus the ORIGINAL quit claim deed. However, you need to be aware that the notary date, and seal, should be enough to meet legal standards, as to when your mom signed it.
I would say that the realty belongs to you, but that may not preclude a law suit. If your sister can show that your mom was incompetent, or under a confidential relationship with you, which is reasonable, and easy to prove in this situation, then she may be able to sue. However, the courts are not stupid, and they will realize that you being your mom’s primary caregiver automatically elevates you to the confidential relationship. Or, in the alternative, it also gives rise to influence that you may or may not had over your mom, at the time of execution of the deed. I would contact the attorney who prepared the quit claim deed, and let him handle this. You may be in trouble here.
If the deed is not genuine, then you lose. The deed can be litigated also.