Since one of the heirs is actually working the farm I would leave the entire land/equipment and business to him Ask for a provision in the will that any future wind lease or oil rights be split 50/50 .
I think the counter-argument here is that the inheritance still exists. What would have happened if the brother hadn’t been working on the farm for the last few years? The parents are older and in poor health. It seems likely that they wouldn’t have been able to keep the farm going as a business and it would have been sold. There would be no present property or potential future value to be debating about.
Ah. Seems that he’s going to have to decide whether to, eventually, keep his farm, or keep his parents’ farm, or come up with some modification of what he’s been doing that allows him to be able to manage both farms (which might, or might not, require some considerable investment in different equipment.) These discussions may possibly be at least in part to give him information he needs to have in order to make that decision.
If he doesn’t intend to keep and/or live on the parental farm, he should certainly let his parents know as soon as possible, as that may affect their decisions; but the discussion will probably need to be a back and forth. And the results may well depend on what portion of the current resources he can expect to wind up with.
Another thing occurs to me: as he’s running the farm they’re living on, he’s presumably the person on the spot who has to help them deal with all sorts of things involving their failing health; work which he may have been doing for some time. Are you also living in the immediate area, and doing a full share of that work? Because I can tell you that people who haven’t done it have no idea of what a drain on time and mental energy it is. If he’s shouldering the full load, or even a significant portion of it, that’s almost certainly contributing to his difficulty in keeping up with the farm work. And, also, it’s work that should if possible be rewarded. Think what it would have cost, out of the possible inheritance funds, to hire someone – or more likely multiple people – to take care of their almost certainly increasing needs.
Why are you assuming they’re “equally entitled” to inherit? Neither of them is “entitled”, in the sense that the parents are doing something evil if they spend their money in their lifetimes, or leave the whole place to a land trust. And in the sense of “deserving to benefit”, the fact that they’re both similarly related doesn’t make them equally entitled if there is money available to leave to them, either. There are all sorts of reasons why it might be entirely reasonable for parents to leave more to one child than to another.
While that makes a lot more sense to me as a suggestion than some of the others, if suggestions are actually asked for: I don’t think the OP should go in planning to ask for anything at all. Again, I don’t think the proper assumption is “The OP (or OP’s wife) is entitled to X share.”
My BIL and SIL live in a house a mile from my FIL. I think the house and the land was given to him by my in-laws but I don’t know that for certain. My BIL helps with health issues first thing in the morning and then at night. My SIL and my wife (we live an hour away) handle the vast majority of their needs. They’re able to do that because they both work for a school system and they’re out for the summer. That has also been a major source of contention as my BIL either doesn’t see or refuses to see the stress that it’s putting on the whole family. He’s in denial. My FIL has advanced prostate cancer that has spread to his bones and is also suffering from kidney failure. He’s completely bedridden. They do at-home dialysis but IMO, all that that’s accomplishing is ensuring that the cancer will kill him instead of the kidney failure. He’s on hospice but they can only do so much and only visit 3 times/week.
It’s all very stressful for everyone.
Does BIL have any role in the care of his parents’ illnesses?
Edit: answered in simulpost
There is no other commercial value to the land other than the potential for wind farming and oil and gas production.
I believe that the “financial guy” came up with the numbers by himself and without any input from any family member.
And this was the point of my post. How can you discuss what is fair when you don’t even know what variables are bing considered or where the numbers came from?
I’ve been married for 33 years and I second this. No way do I get involved in my husband’s family’s inheritance issues.
My wife would ask me just as a sounding board to see if she is missing something. Like in this case I’d ask if any leases would be split 65/35 or 50/50 since that’s not working the farm or what happens if he sells the farm since it’s losing money. But I would not participate in her decision making.
First off, probate law is well established. Each state has a code which defines how to distribute the estate when the person does not have a will. A financial guy can’t just come up with a 65/35 split. Your wife is likely entitled to 50% of the assets of the estate. If the farm is being split 65/35, then your wife should get other assets so that overall it is a 50/50 split. That may mean she gets 35% of the farm and 65% of all other assets.
They can both be on the farm but have different ownership percentages. I believe that’s called “Joint tenants in common”. This way she would continue to have an interest in the farm and be able to gain any profits from it.
One option is for the brother to sell his other farm to buy out her percentage.
By any chance, are there any emails, texts, letters, etc. in which the father’s wishes about the farm are mentioned?
Also remember that all this kind of stuff can be quite contentious and create a lot of bad feelings. She may need to decide between getting her share and keeping her relationship with her brother.
My wife tends to leave financial decisions to me and I tend to leave family matters to her although we do listen to each other. This is the first time that there’s been this much “crossover.”
This thread has shaken loose some cobwebs in my mind. I just realized that I had made copies of my in-laws wills and their trust documents. The wills of both my FIL and MIL leave all assets to the trust. The trust document states that after their deaths, the assets are to be divided equally between my wife and her brother. Now I don’t know what to do when we meet with the financial guy.
What are the total assets of the estate? Is it just the farm or are there other assets to split.
What has to be done is follow the trust instructions. There could be legal consequences if not.
You need to factor in the welfare of MIL before you can unwind that trust.
After FIL passes away, is MIL the sole trustee?
Does she want to stay on the farm or move into town?
I’m not qualified to say. It looks like it’s around 1000 acres of surface rights and 200 acres of mineral rights. They have a fair amount of equipment but I believe the biggest tractor (the kind that sells for $100K) might be leased. The house that they live in needs a great deal of repair but it sits on 80 acres.
Yes, the MIL will be the sole trustee. She’d like to stay on the farm but I don’t know if that’s practical. I’m afraid that she’ll drive my SIL insane.
What needs to happen is an appraisal of the land and other assets so a current value is established. It’s not just for settling the estate. It’s also needed for tax purposes to set the inherited value if the assets are sold at a later date.
The instructions in the will and trust must be followed. If they try to roll their own solution, they are opening themselves to legal headaches down the road. It’s best to get an estate attorney involved since there are a number of complications. I would strongly recommend dropping the financial guy immediately for any estate matters. Any recommendations of his that you follow could create legal problems.
Yeah, well that needs to resolved and it has nothing to do with the financial settlement. Can put excruciating pressures on the family.
Cautionary tale.
Two generations back one of the family branches had a well-run broad acre farm. There was a single unmarried daughter. Father passed away in his 60s and bequeathed the property in a trust with his wife and daughter as beneficiaries. His wife was fragile and never in the best of health. She loved the farm but not necessarily farming. The trust stipulated that nothing was to be done to the property while his wife was alive. Sounded reasonable. Daughter died soon after in an accident. Wife lived another 40 years by which time the property was near derelict.
I’m still kinda confused:
Who is this “financial guy”?
Why is he deciding how to divide the property?
Why is he deciding how to divide the property?
What access does he have to the appropriate financial documents?
He’s the in-laws stock broker/financial adviser. I don’t know why he’s coming up with a new plan. I wasn’t involved in that decision.
Completely disagree.
I fortunately didn’t have to tell him, but my SIL was kept out of all discussions about the sale of our family home. My parents didn’t include her in the will and they didn’t like her calling them Mom and Dad. In there words, “She has her own Mom and Dad!”
As for the split, unless you’re talking about hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, IMO, you’re being extremely petty about 5%, in which you have NO say anyway.
As for the equity split, I fully agree that it’s fair as BIL has been actively working and caring for the land. My oldest sister, who was a probate officer, initially wanted to track everything we spent for my Mom during the last years of her life. I told her if we started tracking who spent and did what, I’d be owed 75% of the estate (when everything was done came out to ~720K) because I lived and cared for my Mom (my Dad passed away 20 years earlier) all my life, whereas they got married and moved away. I was the golden child in my Mom’s eye and could have easily talked her into giving me a bigger share, but I insisted on the 4-way split that my parents always talked about.