What a mess! Need help in Wisconsin!

[Craigpv2d]

Waukesha county, Wisconsin
Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2006

What a mess! Need help in Wisconsin!

My sister is dragging her feet!

Family backround;

My 2nd oldest sister was designated as personal rep. with power of attorney by my father in the last year of his life. My father changed his will the year before his death, because he was afraid I would put him in a nursing home. I had been the original personal rep. because it was agreed at the time, (10 years before his death), that I was the most responsible. Since I was not married and had no kids, I also had the time to handle the estate. Since my fathers retirement at 63, he was more or less a hermit, and rarely left the house except to run errands and shopping, etc. His lifelong 4 pack a day cigarette habit and alcohol abuse finally caught up with him. He was home bound for the last 5 years except when we took him to the doctors office. After numerous falls resulting in injuries, and cigarette burns on himself and around the house from when he fell asleep while smoking, it was obvious that he could not stay home alone. I had never bought him cigarettes or alcohol when I did the shopping, but the two local sisters, (2 of 3 sisters), continued to feed his habit, even when I threatened them with a restraining order. Since he was on oxygen, the cigarettes were an obvious hazard, and most of his meds listed alcohol as a contraindication. Even the doctors and later the hospice team questioned us about the cigarette burns on his body! Just before I was about to have him put in a hospital for detox, and then into a nursing home or assisted living place, he changed the will.

After he died, and the issue of her being the personal rep for the estate came up, (as he requested in his will), I went along with it to try to smooth things over with my sisters. The problem now is that she, (the personal rep.), is dragging her feet and has missed one deadline already that I know of. He died on Dec. 13th, 2005, she was named personal rep on Jan. 25th, 2006. On Oct. 24, 2006 I received an INFORMAL copy of the estate inventory. It says on the copy that it was filed in the probate court on Jul. 24, 2006. I believe we were supposed to get a statement that the inventory was filed within 5 days of the filing. The cover letter from the attorney's office says that we will be provided a copy of the FINAL accounting as soon as it's available. and that my sister hopes to make final distributions by the end of the year. This is the first time I've heard from her about any action being done on his estates behalf. She has neglected to keep us up to date on anything. I've had to resort to combing the internet and my friends at the courthouse to find any info. She has always been lazy and a procrastinator and she claims she's so busy raising two teenage boys by herself. Nevermind the fact that she hasn't had a paying job in 15 years, and she's living off the SSI money from her dead husband.

His house was cleaned out and sold by May, 2006 and we all received a small payout from his pension and small life insurance policy in May 2006. His estate is so small that she should have had time to do the math and paperwork by now. I'm sure she's even hired an accountant at our expense to cover her ass.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if she misses any of the deadlines can she be dismissed as the personal rep.? If that is so, how can I check to see if she's missed any other deadlines, such as filing tax forms, death certificates, etc.? How do I go about having her dismissed as personal rep.? If I do have her removed, does it automatically get handled by the state? Will the whole process start all over again, or will it pick up where she left off?

I would rather not have the state handle this, but I would like to pressure her to hurry up and finish this. I don't need the money, but I could have added it to my other investments that earned 14% last year. My two other sisters are raising kids and earning poverty level wages. I'm positive they could use the money!

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Frustrated in Wisconsin,
CWWhat is the name of your state?

 

[anteater]

I fail to see a "mess."

She has neglected to keep us up to date on anything.

In most states, what the executor is legally required to communicate to the heirs is pretty minimal. Updates from the executor would be nice, but not required.

I'm sure she's even hired an accountant at our expense to cover her ass.

Or, to do things properly?

...she was named personal rep on Jan. 25th, 2006. On Oct. 24, 2006 I received an INFORMAL copy of the estate inventory. It says on the copy that it was filed in the probate court on Jul. 24, 2006. I believe we were supposed to get a statement that the inventory was filed within 5 days of the filing. The cover letter from the attorney's office says that we will be provided a copy of the FINAL accounting as soon as it's available. and that my sister hopes to make final distributions by the end of the year.

One year is hardly an inordinate amount of time between opening and closing an estate.

How do I go about having her dismissed as personal rep.?

You learn a lot about Wisconsin probate law real quick or you hire your own attorney.

You are certainly entitled to have a go at your sister. And, if that is your objective, go for it. But, based upon the info in your post, I doubt that you will accomplish anything other than incurring your own attorney fees, increasing the estate attorney fees, and delaying the close of probate further.

 

[Dandy Don]

At this point you have no legal grounds for getting sister removed. Do you even live in the same city or county where the estate is being probated and have you been able to attend one or more of the probate court hearings?

What is the value of this man's estate and what do the assets consist of? You are perhaps waiting for a payout that may not even happen, especially if personal representative doesn't sell whatever is in the inventory.

 

[Craigpv2d]

Quote:
At this point you have no legal grounds for getting sister removed. Do you even live in the same city or county where the estate is being probated and have you been able to attend one or more of the probate court hearings?

Yes, I live in the same county, and no, I haven't been to any of the probate hearings because we were never informed of the dates.

Quote:
What is the value of this man's estate and what do the assets consist of? You are perhaps waiting for a payout that may not even happen, especially if personal representative doesn't sell whatever is in the inventory.

Assets: (Listed on copy of INFORMAL inventory)

Selling price of house 226,000.00
Less Mortgage 23.288.02

Net subject to administration 202.711.98


Savings acct. 10,971.98

Checkin acct. 2456.99

Total subject to administration 216,140.95

At this point all of his personal effects were split up between the 4 kids BEFORE the house was sold. (Clothing, furniture, tools, appliances, tv, stereo, pictures, etc.) I don't know if my sister, (Personal rep.) made a list of these items with the values of each or not. I beleive all the outstanding utility bills, hospital bills, and property taxes have been paid. I don't know if she has reimbursed herself for her phone bills, mileage, etc. I don't know if the totals above are starting or ending totals. In other words, these may have been the totals in the accounts on the day she took over as personal rep. If that is so the totals would now be lower since she has paid closing costs and commission on the sale of the house, cleaning and utility bills, property taxes, burial costs, legal fees and attorney fees. I know she paid a $3,722.09 property tax bill for 2005, as of May 2005, (when the house sold), but I don't know what else she has paid. She did complain that she was paying some things from her own personal checking account because she only had a limited number of checks for the new account she set up for the estate.

With all this in mind, is her commission as personal rep based on the gross assets or net assets? There were two payouts made from his small, ($5,000) life policy and also a 401K pension. These payouts came directly from the plan administrators and are NOT included in this inventory. Will these amounts be figured into her commission as well? Should I / will I, be allowed to go over the figures and calculations before we receive a final distribution? What if I want to contest the calculations?

I have an attorney for my business and taxes, but he knows little about wills and trusts, so I would need to get another attorney anyway if I wanted to go that route.

I just want to hurry her up as she's always needed to be pushed to complete anything. She always gats an extension to pay her income taxes each year, even back when she was filing the short form done by H&R Block! In the Circuit Court case details listing it shows a 12 month AND an 18 month closing date when she was named personal rep. on 01/25/2006. Maybe she's waiting until 2007 for income tax reasons, as I believe she has to pay income taxes on her commission. Not that she would pay much anyway since, her only source of income is from SSI because of her husbands death.

Thanks in advance,
Frustrated in Wisconsin,
Craig H.

 

[Craigpv2d]

Quote:
At this point you have no legal grounds for getting sister removed. Do you even live in the same city or county where the estate is being probated and have you been able to attend one or more of the probate court hearings?

Yes, I live in the same county, and no, I haven't been to any of the probate hearings because we were never informed of the dates.

Quote:
What is the value of this man's estate and what do the assets consist of? You are perhaps waiting for a payout that may not even happen, especially if personal representative doesn't sell whatever is in the inventory.

Assets: (Listed on copy of INFORMAL inventory)

Selling price of house 226,000.00
Less Mortgage 23.288.02

Net subject to administration 202.711.98


Savings acct. 10,971.98

Checkin acct. 2456.99

Total subject to administration 216,140.95

At this point all of his personal effects were split up between the 4 kids BEFORE the house was sold. (Clothing, furniture, tools, appliances, tv, stereo, pictures, etc.) I don't know if my sister, (Personal rep.) made a list of these items with the values of each or not. I beleive all the outstanding utility bills, hospital bills, and property taxes have been paid. I don't know if she has reimbursed herself for her phone bills, mileage, etc. I don't know if the totals above are starting or ending totals. In other words, these may have been the totals in the accounts on the day she took over as personal rep. If that is so the totals would now be lower since she has paid closing costs and commission on the sale of the house, cleaning and utility bills, property taxes, burial costs, legal fees and attorney fees. I know she paid a $3,722.09 property tax bill for 2005, as of May 2005, (when the house sold), but I don't know what else she has paid. She did complain that she was paying some things from her own personal checking account because she only had a limited number of checks for the new account she set up for the estate.

With all this in mind, is her commission as personal rep based on the gross assets or net assets? There were two payouts made from his small, ($5,000) life policy and also a 401K pension. These payouts came directly from the plan administrators and are NOT included in this inventory. Will these amounts be figured into her commission as well? Should I / will I, be allowed to go over the figures and calculations before we receive a final distribution? What if I want to contest the calculations?

I have an attorney for my business and taxes, but he knows little about wills and trusts, so I would need to get another attorney anyway if I wanted to go that route.

I just want to hurry her up as she's always needed to be pushed to complete anything. She always gats an extension to pay her income taxes each year, even back when she was filing the short form done by H&R Block! In the Circuit Court case details listing it shows a 12 month AND an 18 month closing date when she was named personal rep. on 01/25/2006. Maybe she's waiting until 2007 for income tax reasons, as I believe she has to pay income taxes on her commission. Not that she would pay much anyway since, her only source of income is from SSI because of her husbands death.

Thanks in advance,
Frustrated in Wisconsin,
Craig H.

 

[Craigpv2d]

Learned a hard lesson

Well folks, here's the latest,

We finally received the final accounting data. Unfortunately, it only listed the totals for each schedule. We have no idea how she arrived at these totals! I cornered the estate lawyer at her office after she refused to give me an appointment or talk to me on the phone about the case. She told me that even though she, herself, thought that some of the totals were suspect my only options were to either accept or reject them. If I rejected them, it would go to formal probate, in which case there was the possibility that they may accept the tabulations anyway. Even if we went back to formal proceedings, my sister would still get her 2% of the total, and possibly more if she had to do more work! In addition, there would be more legal fees from the attorney, as well as a fee for the probate court! What a crock! If I had known this in the beginning, I would have never allowed her to do it.

As it was, the only reason we allowed her to do it in the first place was that she had said she would not take her commission, and because his estate was small and not too complicated, that it shouldn't be too much work.

I had done an estate probate for an old girlfriend, as she was too distraught at the loss of her mother to make any sense of it. Didn't seem to complicated to me. My fathers estate was simpler as he had only one house, no car, no personal effects to sell, (we split them ourselves and threw out the rest), only one checking and one savings account, one small mortgage, a funeral bill, utilitiy bills, and a few other bills. Then again, I do my own taxes each year, (even as a small business owner), as I can read and am very good with math. It was really amazing that my sisters share was more than the lawyer and accountant combined on a total estate of $212,000!

Before this, I had tried to give my family members the benefit of the doubt, as I had friends and others tell me that I shouldn't expect my family to be up to my standards. I am supposed to accept them as they are. As a former Marine and college graduate in engineering, maybe the idea of hard work, studying, and honesty, may be too lofty as far as ideals for the rest of my family go. Sounds like the the public schools motto of letting everyone pass, so as not to label anyone as a failure.

The hell with that! I'll keep my high standards, thank you!

Since I'm not a very good actor, and I won't be able to hide my contempt for my older sister, I'll just have to avoid any contact with her in the future. Even though it would have been nice to spend some time with her kids, (besides holidays and funerals), I'll just have to wait a few more years until they are 18 and leave her home. As it is I haven't spent any time alone with them since they were toddlers and I wouldn't let my sister and brother-in-law drive home drunk with them when I was babysittting.

The lesson learned from this is that when my mother dies I'm going to let the state handle it all, even though my mother has named me as the personal representative! Unless you trust your siblings implictedly, let the state sort things out. I hope at least one person can learn from this.

Craig Hoaglund
Delafield, Wisconsin

P.S. Although I'm usually a skeptic, especially with regards to lawyers, the free advice I received here was right on target. Apparently there are some honest lawyers out there. My apologies for preconceiving otherwise.