I have a will and a medical directive. My sons are in charge of it and I feel they will distribute things equally and there won’t be much arguing. I am not sure I have much that either of them would want other than the money they would get from selling everything. It is the responsibility of every person to keep their will updated and clearly state who gets what and who doesn’t get anything, if that is what you want, or trouble will happen. I know because my uncle was trouble.
My uncle liked to get married. He did it a few times. Wife number 2 was a great woman and a hard worker but the 2 of them were not suited. She was a yoga fan and a vegetarian. He got exercise taking his empties back to the Beer Store and he loved meat. He only ate 2 vegetables – onions and potatoes. It was the second marriage for both of them but not the last for either of them.
They separated after a few years but she wished to keep it a secret from her very ill mother. Her mother was in a long-term care facility because of some serious physical problems but she was mentally sharp. My uncle, at the request of my ex-aunt, would visit his elderly ex-mother-in-law very occasionally and act like everything was just fine.
My mother visited the old woman from time to time and the old woman told my mother that she knew her daughter and my father’s brother were no longer together but she was going along with the charade to make her daughter happy. The old woman died without updating her will.
This story would end well if my uncle was a gentleman or only out for cash but he was out to cause trouble. The ex-mother-in-law had left her estate to the both my ex-aunt and my uncle. My uncle didn’t just want half of the VALUE of the estate he wanted half of everything. He took half of the old woman’s jewellery. My ex-aunt offered him a generous cash payment for the jewellery but he drove around our part of the province selling the different pieces to different pawn shops and jewellery stores.
My uncle went on to have an ex-wife number 3 but I never met her. My mom had had enough after ex-wife number 2 and she was not interested in meeting anymore wives. My uncle is gone now. He had to use a motorized wheelchair in the last years of his life. One of his favourite hobbies in his last years was to drive his wheelchair to the local car dealerships on Sundays when they were closed and feed the sea gulls loves of bread. He liked to cause trouble.
He certainly sounds like he liked to cause trouble. My will is pretty clear. I’ve left everything to one person on the account that I know they will distribute everything fairly.
As long as his distribution isn’t subject to gift taxes? I don’t know how those things work.
My parents only included their children, and if any child died before them, the inheritance was to go to that grandchild. Spouses were not included in the will at all.
They had a friend who passed away, leaving everything to their only child and her spouse. The child divorced (after their own children had become adults). After the friend died, everything went to the ex son-in law, and nothing to the grand children because the will had not been updated. Family heirlooms left the family, as well as any money.
People don’t seem to learn the lesson to update the wills but we all know stories just like yours.
what a scumbag!! my siblings are like this – I won’t bore you with the story though. Wills, power of attorneys and health directives are so important. we have these all set up and update as needed, I’m always surprised at how many people I know who still don’t have wills yet though.
I think a lot of people delay wills because planning for death makes it seem too real. If they ignore it it might go away.
What a terrible story! I have heard so many, unfortunately. Perfect family falls apart once it is time to split the estate. My grandmother is 85 and still not done with her 6 siblings sharing what her parents left behind. I am 32 and have a will, half goes to my brother, half to my sister (actually my niece for tax purposes) and that is it. They can’t argue and it should make things easy if something happened.
I think I could make a series out of the stories I hear about inheritance arguments. Money brings out the worst in people.
Clearly this whole scenario is emotionally painful for you and I’m sorry for that.
I’ve got to say however that I lol’d so hard at:
“One of his favourite hobbies in his last years was to drive his wheelchair to the local car dealerships on Sundays when they were closed and feed the sea gulls loves of bread. He liked to cause trouble.”
Ex-wife number 2 knew what she was getting in to before she married him and while I find it shocking it is not painful. Feeding the seagulls was so typical of him and so funny.
I had a very depressing financial post written and this popped in to my head and seemed like more fun for the weekend then another discussion of my never ending debt struggle.
Wow, what a mess.
Completely unrelated; thank you for the mention on GRS! That led to record setting day! Super cool of you.
Also, you should add a contact page and get a Twitter account.
I will figure out what a contact page is but if I get Twitter won’t I have to be clever and pithy and brief every day? Brevity is not my strong suit.
A Contact page is pretty easy to add with WordPress.
Regarding Twitter, you can tweet as much or as little as you want to. I use it to alert my audience of new posts and a random thought here and there. Some people Tweet every hour. For others like MMM (https://twitter.com/mrmoneymustache) and myself, maybe 3 or 4 times/week.
Let me know if you need help with WP.