I’m not sure I see the logic here. Is a will supposed to be some kind of post-hoc payment for services rendered? Should my sister and I be keeping careful tabs on exactly how much we do for our parents now? If you do stuff for your parents you’re supposed to be doing it because they’re your parents, not because you expect to get some lucre out of the deal.
I can see your point if one child actually suspends their career and is taking care of their parents full time, and therefore has their financial security at stake, but that is clearly, unquestionably not the case as stated in the OP; the parents are taking care of themselves.
The sister may be projecting a few years from now and realizing the Mom won’t be driving herself to the grocery store much longer and that rostfrei is 2000 miles away.
When my grandmother passed on, there wasn’t much of an “estate” left and five children - but enough that everyone got a few grand - and the family that had done most of the work in terms of paying her bills for her, getting her to the hairdressers, etc. got a bit more. That side of the family also has some “who needs it most” leanings - so the well off grandkids didn’t see anything - the struggling grandkids (three of them) got slipped $1000. There wasn’t a will - there was a trust - so the trust assets were distributed with a little more flexibility than had a will been in place.
It can be. Like Dangerosa said, the parents are old and getting older, and they’re probably one broken hip away from being far less mobile and able to take care of themselves. The reality in most families is that the adult children the physically closest to older parents do get a lion’s share of the caretaking duties, and I have no problem with a will reflecting that. No, you don’t look after your parents because you expect to get 3/4 of the estate, but if I was an adult child who didn’t look after an older parent, and I had a sister who did, I would expect her to inherit more, and I would be fine with it. Her time and effort looking after our mutual parent would be worth a lot to me.
I can also see the logic of the will not reflecting who did more later years caretaking. I guess it would depend on the family involved, and how they view things like that.
The following is an actual conversation between Shirley Ujest and her Mother whilst driving the car somewhere. I am driving.
Mom: When I die, you will be coming into alot of money.
Me {thinking} *Her idea if alot of money is 10,000. My idea of alot of money is ten million. And I know ten million she ain’t got. *( Outloud): I don’t care mom. Spend it all. Enjoy yourself, you deserve it.
Mom: (ignoring me) :That is unless I linger in a nursing home and it eats away at the estate.
Me: (motioning to push her out of the moving car.) Well, let me help you out.
If I find out when my mom dies according to her it is any day now, unless, of course she lingers. that she is loaded, I will be gobsmacked.
They need a will, but more importantly, a trust to avoid probate. They can set one of you up as the trustee (or co-trustees), but you’ll both have access to view the trust document so there is transparency.
I think its also worthwhile to recognize that even if you really love your parents - caring for them as they age is like caring for your own children - you may want to do it - you may love them and feel that its your responsibility to do it, you may do it willingly and gladly, but you make sacrifices to do it. No one has unlimited resources of time and money - and taking Mom to the grocery store on Saturday means your are missing a soccer game for your kid, or an afternoon at the movies with your girlfriends. And there are the little expenses the quickly add up “I’ll bring over some lightbulbs mom and get all them changed for you.” “I’ll just pick you up some of that when I’m out” - just the gas isn’t free.
Its easy for the child several hours away not to see these little sacrifices - or understand that when added up this can be a significant committment. “What?, its just picking up extra at the store and swinging by Mom’s to drop it off.” Week after week after week - when the grocery bill is tight and you have nine minutes between soccer and dance and haven’t managed to see your husband in two days.
My mother in law - who has recently been ill but who has been in great shape previously - has two sons. Brainiac4 and his brother. For years his brother lived out of state. Which means for years it fell on me and Brainiac4 to make sure that she had somewhere to be on holidays. This is really a simple sort of thing - she can drive herself, she has her own friends, she is a very independant (and very cool) lady - but being with family on holidays is important to her - and we were the family that was in town. Which meant I was sacrificing time with my own parents - because his brother decided to live out of state. It would never occur to his brother that this was even happening - it would probably be beyond him to project from “Brainac4 is spending Thanksgiving with Mom again” to “That means Dangerosa isn’t spending Thanksgiving with her parents” to “I bet that is a sacrifice for Dangerosa.” For the last couple of years of this arrangement, both my own sisters lived out of state - so now we have that responsibility for two sets (but my parents have other family in town - my aunts and uncles - so juggling my own family was a little easier.)
Now, none of this needs to be reflected in the will (my mother in law doesn’t have much, I’m expecting that when she does pass we aren’t going to be getting significant assets - but likely boxes and boxes of buttons) - we are doing it because we care about her. But it doesn’t seem to me like a will needs to be divided right down the middle. Fair does not always mean equal.
Speaking as the one behind taking care of the aging parent - it isn’t easy. My mother seems to forget that, although she’s sitting around her house everyday watching Judge Judy and FoxNews, I’m working. And those couple days off on the weekend, I might have something I want to do. But she expects me to come and take her shopping, or help take down the Christmas tree, or help because she’s invited my three young nephews to decorate Christmas cookies, but she doesn’t have the energy to keep up with 3 under-8 boys, or just sit around her house watching TV with her. So she’s just sure I’ll be thrilled to help out. And I do it, because someone has to. She’d like me to stop at her house every day after work, just to spend some time with her. In the end it comes down to me coming a couple days a week, and one day on the weekends. She doesn’t seem to see that she’s imposing - she was a housewife most of her life. Those siblings that see her once or twice a year, or every other month, have no idea how much energy that sort of constant attention can drain from you.
I’m not expecting a larger portion of her estate. But I did tell her that if she wanted me to be the executor, she would have to talk to each kid and explain what the will entailed. I told her I didn’t want to be made the bad guy when it came time to divide her estate, and that losing my siblings because of fights about money on top of losing her would be rotten.
I have sort of the opposite problem. I live 100 miles away from my Mom, my brother only 6 or 7 miles. But he has abandoned/disowned her over petty bullshit.
All help now falls on my shoulders.
He’s still in the will. I guess it is my Mom’s way of saying that while he has abandoned her she was able to forgive and forget.
If your parents have all their faculties, and it sounds like they do, I’m not sure it could be considered “cheating” you out of an inheritance if your sister can convince them to leave everything to her. I think that if your parents are that easily swayed, the problem is with them, not with her. Personally, I wouldn’t be opposed to one of my siblings being compensated for being a caregiver, but depending on how much your parents’ estate is worth, I doubt she would be entitled to the whole thing unless she was doing MAJOR caregiving, like if one of your parents was bedridden and living at her house, for instance. If I recall correctly from when my husband’s parents died, his brother was paid something out of the estate before it was split up (he had arranged the in-home health care, bought the groceries, etc. for a year or so). If I were you, I would try to have a family meeting to talk about the whole thing with all concerned.
Every time I think of it, I thank god that my in-laws had a nice, ironclad 50/50 trust for their two sons. As it was, there was acrimony over stupid things like funeral arrangements and disposing of the household items. If they had to figure out how to split up the money, too, I can’t imagine what would have happened.
I’m sorry that greed is spoiling family relationships.
A couple of examples from my own family:
when a great-aunt died, my Dad was executor. Although the will clearly specified what went to whom, he was besieged with requests that people be given extra valuables (even those relatives who had never contacted the deceased for years) :rolleyes:
my parents made clear wills and even though they died soon after each other, the lawyer was able to sort everything out.
Until I was in my mid-forties, my parents made every effort to keep things balanced between my sister and me. If one of us got something, the other got the same or something of equal value.
After my father died, this practice ended abruptly. That was a rude awakening for me.
Count me in as one of those people who believe that the sibling who takes care of Mom and/or Dad deserve to be compensated somehow, preferably while the parents are still alive (e.g a monthly or annual stipend). Taking care of an aging parent is akin to have a newborn except it’s even harder to find a babysitter.
That doesn’t mean that other children should not get anything. They most certainly should. But an even split? No. When you offer to take care of Mom 182 days of the year, then sure.
I’m not sure whether the prize for money-centered thinking goes to the fourteen-year-old girl who pocketed $20 meant to be shared, or to the adult who still resents it a couple of decades later. What is clear is that they’re both spending too much time coveting someone else’s money. They’re hardly alone, but that merely gives them company.
To me, it’s an odd sense of fairness that speaks of compensation for caring for parents in their old age. Apparently, a lot more people changed their own diapers as infants, and expect to do so again in their dotage, than I imagined.
rostfrei, if you really need the money, why not ask your parents for it now, when they can enjoy the feeling of helping their child one more time? Better yet, have them make it a loan. The debt will be an asset of their estate, and when your sister tries to collect, you can claim you lost the money at the fair, and the balance of the universe will be restored. And then she can sue you.
Of course, if you don’t need it, you should examine why thoughts of it are threatening to poison your relationship with your sister and your parents.
Trust me, every parent is familiar with the child’s idea of fairness: whatever she gets, I get one too, wherever he goes, so too go I, and weigh the ice cream while you’re at it. There may be parents who are willing to put up with that foolishness forever, but I haven’t met them. Most, I think, hope that by adulthood at the latest the kids will have stopped trying to measure their parents’ love, at least by such crude and venal means.
It’s better if they spend it all, and enjoy their last years to the fullest. I told my dad to do this. Pretty much, he did. Fine by me, his money, not mine.
You can also avoid probate by leaving next to nothing.
My parents have made me their executor. I expect several petty bullshit arguments with one sister and my two brothers. My sister (the others are steps) probably won’t give a shit. This is my mom and step-dad.
My dad and step-mom, however - jeeesh. That’ll suck. I have three steps who are pretty much useless. I sure hope Dad’s got a will. I don’t want anything from him, but I want to make sure they don’t cheat my sister.
In my trusts and estates class in law school, the profs were practicing attorneys who worked generally on very large estates. They said that in their experience, it was never the siblings that caused problems when the parents died; it was the siblings’ spouses who fought over things.
In my family, I don’t anticipate any problems with fighting when my parents go. They’ve been open about their estate plan, and have been equitable (not even-handed, but equitable) about helping their kids out. For example, they paid my living expenses while I was in law school; they gave my sister a down payment for her first house; they’ve helped one brother with a condo purchase and are helping another brother with a house purchase. The amounts have all been different, but it’s been what we need when we need it.
And as for their estate plan, I reviewed it after their lawyer drafted it. I figured out a loophole I could use to cheat others out of their share, and showed it to my parents. They had the lawyer close the loop, so I think even if I wanted to, I couldn’t divide their estate inequitably.
I’ve had the fortune or misfortune, I can’t decide which it is, to have worked on a few estate litigation cases and in my experience it is usually always the siblings. My take seems to be that screwed up families make for screwed up probate fights.
The fights usually seem to be about how things are divided. One case had a well put together estate plan but one sibling was complaining that her half was put in trust with a corporate fiduciary. Granted, having met that sibling, I don’t blame mom for doing that.
My parent’s estate will be a mess I suspect. They own three properties in a foreign country and have bank accounts in at least two countries. At least there is only one heir.
That is an excellent point. I think I will mention this to my mom - encourage her to take whatever money she has and make sure SHE enjoys it, without a thought for leaving something for us. Maybe I’ll email her some world cruise brochures.
I think you’re over-simplifying here. I had a long post composed, but it occurred to me that this is probably a whole topic, so I’ve opened another thread on it here.
