I am involved in a difficult estate settlement. I have a question regarding the fact that sending items via certified mail can be problematic because the recipient can always claim that what they received was either empty or not what they were expecting. I know there have been previous discussions on false claims of sending or receiving “a blank sheet of paper” or a “rock,” but I did not see where my question was really answered in any of these discussions. I hope you will read the entire post to see just the type of person I am dealing with in order to understand the motivations behind why a recipient might falsely claim to have received something other than what they actually received. I read one discussion in which someone said “avoid dealing with people like this,” but if you read this post, I think you will see that this is a case in which the person could not be avoided.
My aunt had a stroke and I was designated as her Power of Attorney. After she died we found a large amount of cash and savings bonds in her car. I reported it immediately to the Clerk of the Court and to an attorney in the county in which my aunt lived, and they made a record of it. My aunt had been estranged from her daughter-in-law and grandson for over twenty years, and it was assumed I would be named executor in her will. My aunt left most of her bank accounts to me through POD. I conducted a thorough search for a will but none was found, so it appeared she died intestate. This meant that the grandson was the sole heir of the remaining property (my aunt’s son was already deceased, having died over ten years ago). During the search for the will I met with a former attorney of my aunt’s to see if he remembered her ever making out a will, and he actually advised me to keep the cash and not tell anyone. I could not do that–in fact, by that time I had already reported it to the Clerk and to the other attorney, but I would have never kept the cash anyway, because it was illegal, and at least for me, unconscionable.
The grandson’s mother (my aunt’s daughter-in-law) was named Administrator because the grandson was not capable of handling the complexities of financial matters. The daughter-in-law has been a difficult person to work with. She wanted me to convert the cash to a cashier’s check and mail it and the savings bonds to her. I was concerned about this because the Clerk of the Court had told me not to turn anything over to her without getting a receipt for it. Mailing it would mean I would not get a receipt for the actual items mailed–even mailing it with return receipt or signature confirmation or whatever all the complicated options the Post Office offers are, just means that she received “something” in the mail. She could always claim something was missing. The Administrator said I could insure the cashier’s check and savings bonds but I was concerned about whether they could really be insured by U.S. Mail, as well as the problem of verifying that what was insured was actually in the shipment. And the final value of the savings bonds at this point was not really known. The Clerk also said that if I walked into the bank with that large amount of cash to be converted to a cashier’s check, it would be reported to the IRS, and since I was not Administrator I would have no estate papers to explain everything to avoid it being an issue with the IRS.
The Clerk of the Court advised me to arrange for us to meet in her office. I am on disability with a severe debilitating fatigue, but I managed to make the trip to the other state for the meeting. The Clerk made up a receipt for all the items and the Administrator and I signed the receipt. The Clerk then notarized it.
The next day the Administrator called the Clerk and then called me and said she could not find the death certificates or the funeral bill and said I must have the documents and accused me of conspiring with the Clerk to “cook up a fraudulent receipt.” If I am honest enough to turn over the cash, why would I withhold the death certificates and the funeral bill (especially since the funeral bill is so I will be reimbursed from the estate)? I told the Administrator that I clearly remembered handing her three death certificates, and then I searched for the remaining fourth one and handed it to her, because I remember passing my left thumb over the seal as I handed it to her. The Clerk said she saw me hand the certificates to to the Administrator. The Clerk made copies of the funeral bill and then handed the original to the Administrator and the copies to me. I witnessed the Clerk handing the Administrator the original bill.
I looked through the few papers I had left from the meeting and told the Administrator I did not have the death certificates or the funeral bill. I reminded her that she had received a large number of documents and the documents she claimed were missing were probably somewhere in the stack of documents and she had overlooked them. The Clerk told her the same. In fact, during the meeting, the Clerk brought the Administrator a form to apply for a death certificate for my aunt’s first husband. Ten minutes later the Administrator claimed she never received the form. I said I remembered the Clerk handing it to her, and the Clerk said she did too. The Administrator continued to assert that she had not received it. The Clerk got another form for the Administrator. A few minutes later the Administrator picked up a box she had on the Clerk’s table, and the original form was under the box.
The Administrator told me she didn’t put the death certificates and funeral bill “in her folder,” but instead put them in a stack of papers she had on the Clerk’s desk. I told her that was not my problem. She continues to insist that she does not have them and that I must still have them.
The Administrator has also been pressuring me to provide her with the bank statements for the accounts that were POD to me. The Clerk told her she had no right to them. The Administrator said she needed them to present to the Commissioner of Accounts. I called the Commissioner of Accounts and she said she never told the Administrator that the bank statements would be needed; all that is needed is a summary of the final disbursements, which the Administrator can get from the banks herself.
When the Administrator said she did not have the original funeral bill, I pointed out that she still had the second bill I received from the funeral home. The Administrator said that was not good enough for the Commissioner of Accounts because an itemized bill was needed. I called the Commissioner of Accounts again and she told me this was not true. In fact, so far at least three things the Administrator has claimed were told to her by the Commissioner of Accounts have turned out not to be true. That is, what the Administrator told me turned out not to be true.
I then called the Administrator and told her that I had spoken with the Commissioner of Accounts and she had told me that I did not have to turn over the bank statements to the Administrator, nor did she have to have an itemized funeral bill. The Administrator became angry and asked me why I was trying to be Administrator by contacting the Clerk of the Court and the Commissioner of Accounts “behind her back.” I told her I was not trying to be Administrator, but that since she was accusing me of withholding documents and trying to get my bank statements, I was contacting the Clerk and the Commissioner to get information clarified.
This must have made the Administrator angry, because she then said, “And I’m surprised you didn’t bring the key to the house to the meeting with the Clerk of the Court to turn over to me.” (The Administrator’s son has inherited my aunt’s house.) My aunt gave me the key 30 years ago. I told the Administrator that the key is broken and will not fit in the lock. When I had Power of Attorney, I had to use a key my aunt had given to a neighbor to get into the house, and that key has since been turned over to the Administrator. I then said that I thought that, besides being broken, the key was useless because the Administrator had had the locks on the house changed. The Administrator said, “The old locks that were taken off are still good, so I still want all the keys for the old locks.” I have never had to deal with changing locks, so maybe I am naive, but I thought the purpose of changing locks is because of concerns of keys lingering out there that could still be used. Wouldn’t that concern be the same if the old locks were to be used for something else? I didn’t realize people used the old locks; I thought they were disposed of. I told the Administrator I would send her the key but she said never mind. Which leads me to believe she just brought it up to be vindictive.
In fact, I had they key on my key chain when we were in the Clerk’s office, but I never thought about it. If the Administrator was expecting the key, why didn’t she ask for it then?
Now, to back up a bit to before the meeting with the Clerk of the Court, I want to describe the events leading up to obtaining an Administrator.
When it was determined there was no will, the daughter-in-law and her son took a month to decide about being Administrator, and finally they declined. I said I would do it but when I looked into the matter, it turned out that it would be complicated because I lived out of state and would have to be bonded, and an attorney would have to be involved. A friend told me he didn’t understand why I would put my assets at risk and open myself to liability when there was nothing left in the estate for me to inherit. He said I am on disability and there are many days when I cannot function, and I am having a hard time staying on top of my own matters, including taxes, medical bills, etc. The long drives that would be required to the other state would be risky since I have excessive daytime sleepiness. (I am writing this post during a period in which my energy is a little better than normal.) The two attorneys I had already talked to said I should not be Administrator and made it clear they would not take the case if I were so foolish as to apply to be Administrator.
Because all my assets, including my car and the equity in my house, would have to be put up as collateral for the bond, I decided not be Administrator. I notified my aunt’s daughter-in-law and the Clerk of the Court a week after the daughter-in-law and grandson had declined. A month later, the daughter-in-law asked me to reconsider. The daughter-in-law threatened to go to court to have a judge order me to be Administrator. I contacted the Commissioner of Accounts and she said no one could be ordered to be Administrator, and besides, I lived in a different state, and a judge in the other state had no authority over the residents of the state in which I live. So I called the daughter-in-law back the same day and told her “no way.” But the daughter-in-law keeps saying now that I “kept them waiting for over a month” deciding whether or not to be Administrator. She is including the month in between the first time I said “no” and the second time I said “no” as time I “kept them waiting.” I had marked the dates on my calendar and I went over the sequence of events and explained to to her that the time I took deciding about being Administrator totaled exactly 1 week + 1 day (for the reconsideration).
The Clerk of the Court and the Commissioner of Accounts have both said that they don’t understand why the daughter-in-law and the grandson were so reluctant to be Administrator when there was so much cash and savings bonds waiting for them. The estate accounting process is much simpler when the single heir is the Administrator and lives in state. If I had been Administrator an attorney would have to be involved, and those fees would have reduced the amount of money the daughter-in-law and grandson would receive. I told the daughter-in-law that if she and her grandson did not want to be Administrator, the Commissioner of Accounts suggested they get an attorney to do it.
However, the daughter-in-law and grandson finally relented and are now Co-Administrators. The daughter-in-law is doing all the work because the grandson cannot. The daughter-in-law keeps bemoaning the fact that all that they are getting is two cheap houses and an old car (although she keeps forgetting to mention the cash and savings bonds they are getting), while I got most of the money in the bank accounts.
The cynical side of me says that the real reason the daughter-in-law wanted me to be Administrator is so if I made a mistake, they could come after me for some of the money my aunt left me through the POD accounts. All the nitpicking and blaming she has done since we met in the Clerk of the Court’s office has reinforced that suspicion.
I know this is long, but I have said all this to describe the type of person I am dealing with, as well as what I believe are motivations on her part to try to trap me in any way she can. I know there have been previous discussions about mailing a “bank piece of paper” via certified mail, but those discussions were muddled by people saying why would anyone want to do that, and some of those discussions were more focused on the sender having ill will. Some responders to those discussions have said there would be no reason for the recipient to falsely claim they had received something other than what was requested.
In describing all this I hope I have shown that in this case, if I have to send the Administrator anything by mail, she (the recipient) does have a motive to claim she received “something,” but not what she was expecting, or she might simply claim she received an empty envelope. I believe she would use any opportunity to come after me financially to try to get the money my aunt left me.
I am on disability and it is difficult for me to travel to the other state. If I have to send anything else (such as the broken house key to the “old locks”), I want to mail it or ship it. Is there ANY way to send something so that the contents are verified by a reliable third-party before the Administrator receives it?
Thanks,
Robert
I only found out how helpful she was when I went to the Courthouse to register the death certificate, and this was unfortunately after I had already met with the attorneys.