So… did your mother give it back to you?
And I didn’t mean to come off as if I thought you were lecturing me. 
Though maybe I could have used one at the time – if either of us had known that could happen, probably neither of us would wanted both our names on the same accounts. Fortunately it all worked out – except for the part about him dying.
And yeah, did your mom give the money back?
Nobody cheated you out of anything. This fantasy that they did is all in your own head. No decent parent sacrifices for their children with the expectation that there is some kind of bill due at some point in the future.
The fact that you expected your kids to pony up out of their inheritance for what you feel you were shortchanged by your ex while raising is absurd. Literally absurd. Your sense of entitlement is astounding, and now you’ve broken your family into pieces over your grabbiness. You need to apologize to your kids for putting them on the spot with your awful guilt tripping.
Her attitude is pretty heinous, yes, but she IS owed back support before the kids get their inheritance. If she didn’t get a lawyer, that’s her fault though.
Her lawyer had to get the children and youth dept to give it back, but yeah I got it back pretty quickly.
Coincident to cheatedbykids’s concerns, I did eventually effectively pay off my own and my sibling’s child support.
My mom had a judgement against my dad for back child support. My dad was sick and insolvent, but owned real estate that was not only worth a considerable amount but we had owned for a long time. It grew over time but the original piece of the farm has been in the family since the 1750s.
We wanted to transfer the property to us kids as advance estate planning. My mom was willing to go along and drop her lien in the interest of seeing her kids get to keep the property. Until it came out that my dad wanted to give my half sister an equal share long with me and my whole siblings, which upset my whole siblings and my mother.
So she backed out and said she wouldn’t give up her lien unless he did his inheritance how she and my siblings wanted… 14 years after they were divorced. Legally she had every right to insist on her lien being paid off but she knew it was really putting me in a bind - basically legal extortion.
I don’t like people pushing around my poor sick father so bought one of his houses from him at fair value and we used the cash to pay off my child support. I got a house out of the deal, albeit one I would have inherited someday… so it wasn’t all that terrible. It’s a better story if I just say that I paid my own child support.
This is like a Republic serial!
So what did your dad ultimately do re the dispositions of his estate once the threat of the lien was lifted?
After all was said and done he decided to exclude my little sister and now I control and manage the property for myself and my whole-siblings. There’s no family besides us kids and he really didn`t even have friends so I tried really hard to be supportive even though I was clearly an interested party. By the time this happened my dad had mild dementia and in his prime he was a pushover.
He’s still alive actually, but with severe dementia and usually doesn’t recognize me. So I use the income from the properties to pay for his care and it’s not much different than it was when we started.
It was a very unpleasant experience. The argument in favor of excluding my little sister was that she “didn’t really help out with dad or the farm”. Except that 1) none of my other siblings helped besides me either and 2) she was five at the time. At least my other siblings were adults and should’ve been helping.
aww… now I went and made myself sad about it all. 
You only thing you’re entitled to, rostfrei, is what is left to you (usually) in the Will of the remaining parent.
And don’t kid yourself that you have a ‘better’ attitude to money than your sister - here you are procuring anonymous advice in regard to shoring up your future dead man’s dough, when all you have to do is speak with your capable and functioning parents.
Thanks DrDeth. No truer words spoken.
That depends on the location, like any other legal subject: I’m registered in my mother’s accounts as a “sub-signatary”, not co-signatary. This means I’m not liable for any debts, but I can freeze the accounts with only her CoD, rather than nobody having the ability to access the movements or freeze them until the whole inheritance process is finished. Location: Navarre, Spain.
cheatedbykids, that’s not your heart, it’s your wallet.
If the law is that clear about dividing liquid assets, maybe a will isn’t necessary. Unless the parent wants to "reward"one kid more for extra care. But, as said upthread, that is better done while alive, for everyone’s sake, and to pay less tax.
But aren’t the meanest fights after a parents death about things? My mom and her sisters have quarreled their whole lives, and I’m sorry to have to say it, but my mom is the most self-centered and pettiest of the three sisters.
Grandma’s antique clock after her death? Cause of the dirtiest fight I’ve witnessed outside a cage.
My grandmothers silver figurines? My aunt had taken them, and while visiting, my mom made such a scene that her brother-in-law picked her up by her collar and literally pushed her out the door.
Now that I write this down, I actually wonder if anything my grandmother had written down about who was to have what, could have prevented any of this ugliness. Maybe, as said upthread, screwed up sibling relationships will inevitably lead to screwed-up scenes after the parent’s deaths.
So in hindsight, maybe what I regarded as my grandmothers passiveness in not wanting to arrange anything, was partly her knowing that it wouldn’t do any good anyway.
After her mother died, my aunt tried to grab everything she could, including some things which weren’t even available because Grandma had gifted them in life. Any time someone refused her with clear arguments, she backed up real fast. One of the arguments was about some jewelry: traditionally that would have gone to my aunt as the only daughter, but it was jewelry from a great-aunt who was one of my uncle’s godmother so he claimed it… if Grandma had bothered specify who was getting those particular pieces, or give them in life, the mess would have stopped as soon as it started (as it did with the trunk or the jewelry she gave to me). Every family’s mileage will vary, of course.
By “backed up real fast”(I didn’t know the expression)you mean that your aunt gave in, or that she came up with counter arguments why she should have it?
Gave in, no further fighting. Example:
“I understand you have grandfather’s trunk”
“Yes, I do, why?”
“I’d like it.”
“Well, your mother gave it to me and it was her father’s. Would you like me to make a will and put you in it as its heir? Because over my dead body is about the only way anybody is getting it.”
“Oh. No, sorry, I hadn’t realized you valued it.”
“Nah, I’ve dragged it across the Atlantic twice because I don’t like it 
Pass the salad?”
ETA: I’m at home right now, so that poor, battered, 110ish-yo trunk is now about 90cm from me 
Forty years ago, my paternal grandmother died, and to this day, I remember my dad commenting about the youngest of his 3 sisters who essentially ransacked her mother’s possessions and took all the choice pieces. It was especially striking because she was the best off of the three sisters while the eldest was barely scraping by. I lost a lot of respect for that aunt because of her greed.
My husband and I had to push his folks hard to make wills. It’s not that they’re wealthy by any means, but my father in law has made some beautiful furniture over the years and we didn’t want to see the three brothers fighting over who got what. There is also concern about the youngest brother who has severe enough mental issues that he can’t live alone and would speed thru any inheritance he got with no thought of the future. Anyway, we know they have wills and we know the middle brother is the executor. So that’s great.
My dad has been gone 10 years, and my mom is 78. Because Dad was a planner, they both had wills and I do know my brother is Mom’s executor. I *think *the plan for allocating personal items is a round-robin of taking turns picking things. And Mom has been giving things away for years, partly to declutter, partly, I’m sure, to preclude estate battles. Honestly, I can’t think of any things of hers that I really want, altho there’s one small painting that all 5 of us would like to have and I have no hope of getting it. My brother is a good and honest man, so I’m not at all worried about anything with him as executor.
And my husband and I have only one child - easy-peasy.
BTW, I see Nava referred to the OP- this thread is a zombie (just in case posters weren’t aware).
I even see Featherlou who now goes by a different name. I suppose the name doesn’t change in quotes.
I think it depends on their relative circumstances today. If the kids are doing well because of college educations that their mom paid for and she has zero assets and is now living hand-to-mouth on nothing but a meager social security check, and they took their inheritance and bought a boat, then yes, I think it’d be ok to feel outraged. But if everyone is in a"basic needs comfortably met" place and the kids wanted to put the inheritance towards their own kids’ college funds or something, then the mom’s off base. I mean, our kids don’t owe us anything for their care, but we do have an obligation to our parents.
ETA: If it’s “real money” and the mom is really poor, then I think the right thing to do would be to keep it in whatever form it is in, let mom have the interest while she is alive, and then after her death, divide it among the siblings.
No I didn’t: I referred to the re-OP. No references to the original OP.
Apologies- wrong poster. It was 6Impossiblethingsbeforebreakfast.
(You just wanted to make me type that didn’t you?) 
About a year and a half ago, my father looked over his will, made sure everything was OK, and got my mother’s will taken care of as well. She has Alzheimer’s. He died in December.
My brother and sister and I have been agreeable when it’s come to picking out stuff from the family home…our mother will never be able to live on her own, so we are just taking the sentimental stuff, no drama. When Mama was in her right mind, more or less, she gave both my sister and me various pieces of jewelry, and our brother got a car. However, my sister and I have swapped some of the jewelry, as Sissy’s birthstone is diamond, and mine is sapphire. Sissy loves diamonds, and Mama gave me her first engagement ring which had 7 diamonds in it, and Sissy got a couple of rings with blue topazes in them and a matching bracelet. I gave Sissy the ring with the diamonds, and the story behind it, and she gave me the blue topaz set. The topazes aren’t sapphires, but I like them better than diamonds.
It’s POSSIBLE to be civil. However, my mother and her sisters got into several very nasty fights when their parents died, mostly because my grandmother would promise each sister that she was getting the silver, or the grandfather clock, or whatever. Grandma delighted in setting one sister against the others, even in her later years. So I’ve seen some nasty fights, too.
Seems like a tacky request, to me. Did you at least wait until after the funeral to start begging your kids for money?