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Equal Distribution is Unfair

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tatbense

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? Kansas

My father died this January of a sudden heart attack. I have two brothers, one of which was estranged from the entire family and lives in another state. He is a former felon, an alcoholic, and was recently awarded SSI Disability benefits due to recent diagnosis as bi-polar and manic depressive. Upon my father's death this brother did come back to town, but did not attend the memorial service, did not pay towards funeral expenses, and generally spend most of his time threatening the family in the middle of the night about what he "is owned".

Since leaving town the threats have continued and escalated to the point that he is claiming he will "sue" us for not giving him "regular weekly updates", for not giving him a copy of the death certificate, and for witholding information from him. I do not communicate with this brother because I am trying to run my father's business and really do not wish to have him calling me in the middle of the night once he has access to my phone number. I did not supply him with a copy of the death certificate because I mistakenly didn't order enough and, to be honest, even had I had a copy I wouldn't have wanted to send it to him. He has already once before impressonated my father using his social security number and I would not like to repeat that.

Our probate attorney said we could "buy out" this brother's portion of the estate at any time, but this brother refuses any acknowledgement of the real value of items in the estate. He claims my dad's motorcycle was worth $40,000 and his toolbox and tools $50,000. He grossly over estimates the worth of the business and does not acknowledge the nearly $200,000 of debt owed for business loans and mortgages. He also refuses to acknowledge that my father's home was nearly a shack after over a decade of neglect, water pipe leakage, and termite infestation which my dad was too proud to tell anyone about and too ill to physically fix himself.

I am beside myself with what to do. My entire family is turned upside down. My wedding is on hold. My finances are dwindling after moving here in the middle of the night to step in and administrate things. And, worst of all, I don't believe my dad would have wanted things to end this way. I do not know why he never wrote a will other than the time and hassle of the process.

Can this brother sue me for the threats he has made above, including not giving weekly updates?

How can I stop the threats?

When there is no will, do all siblings automatically become inheritors regardless of their mental stability?

How can I keep my brother from having some of the vehicles and assests my father told everyone he NEVER wanted this brother to have access to, let alone breathe on?

This just doesn't feel fair or just to me.
 


Dandy Don

Senior Member
Change your phone number or get an answering machine to record his messages/calls and if any sound threatening make an official report to police.

Send him a copy of the death certificate by certified mail so that he can perhaps calm down.

If he continues to pester you about the estate, tell him it will take time for the estate to be handled and he will just have to be patient. If you can afford to hire an attorney to be executor it would be better for you to do this so the attorney can be a neutral objective third party who can tell brother to calm down and deflect some of the hate from being directed towards you.

Yes as a sibling he is entitled to inherit regardless of his mental condition.
 

tranquility

Senior Member
You father let you down by not making a proper will or trust or other estate planning technique. Your brother has as much right to all the property as you do. If you haven't already done so, start probate. If you don't he might and you don't want to argue why he shouldn't be in control. You have a nasty situation on your hands. Very nasty. Because you father didn't plan, the estate will pass by intestate succession.

As to the threats, get a restraining order. He doesn't have the right to weekly updates, but he does have rights to see what you are doing with property which will be his. I'm sorry for your problems.
 

xylene

Senior Member
Sorry about Dad.

Your beef about your brother is not really very fair.

He's crazy. And he isn't going to get what he wants in terms of exaggerated value.

Within the degrees of rationality and sanity, the more you humor him, the smoother this will be, the faster it will be, the sooner you can tell him to F off.

On that point, you need squash your brotherly beefs, because they change nothing in terms of how Dad's assets will be divided.

Because from an outsiders perspective, your brother is mad because he knows you would disinherit him. In fact that is what you are asking how to do.

Are you really sure it was for a lack of time or not wanting to be bothered that Dad didn't draft a will that disinherited bipolar brother? ;)
 

xylene

Senior Member
As to the threats, get a restraining order.
Informing someone you will sue if they try to take / spoil your share of the estate (which the poster seems to be planning) is not a threat.

The scenarios when proposing litigation amount to a criminally actionable threat are few. Especially when the person 'threatening' litigation has a mertious claim.

Calling at late hours repeatedly when told not to might be harassment. Tatbense is really not specific enough to say. In fact, the way he phrases this suggests this is something feared more than happening.
 

tranquility

Senior Member
I agree with Xylene. I focused in on threats and calls in the middle of the night and did not read closely to see they were threats to sue and you feared calls in the middle of the night if you gave him your number. Sorry.
 

tatbense

Junior Member
Thanks... and a little more info.

Thank you to all who have responded to my questions. I fully admit being at my wits end at times with this issue.

I do know my dad let me down on this very crucial issue. I think that's been the hardest thing to accept and deal with... particularly when, aside from not creating a will, my father truly hadn't let me down in the past in other ways. Whatever I needed, he was there. And consequentally because he was so consistently there for me, I tried to grow into a good/responsible adult who would not need him for money, favors, or middle of the night help. I essentially worked as hard as I could to be the exact opposite of my oldest brother.

To give a tiny bit more light on my concerns about my brother. His threats include physical violence, legal mud slinging, causing financial damage, even threats to my fiance. For example, when I came back home for the funeral and to make arrangements he called 8 times in the middle of the night/morning... the morning of my dad's memorial service (!)... to say that he say my fiance driving my dad's car the day before (to go pick up photo blow-ups of dad for display at the memorial service) and he was going to come over and grab him by the neck and shake 'the money' out of him... because dad's car (under his rational) was 1/3 his and he was now owed rental money or something of the sort.

My childhood with my oldest brother included physical threats and violence that had me literally climbing out my bedroom window at times. So, I know my brother to no just be mentally unstable but capable of acting on his instable thoughts.

As to why dad didn't write the will. I think it was a combination of factors. He owned a 24/7 service business that had him answering phones on weekends and in the middle of the night. He insisted on doing all of this himself (which I now am doing in his place for the time being). His health simultaneous to building his business was deteriorating. Breathing problems that caused him to not be able to sleep laying down for the past 5 years, diabetes, heart palpitations, weight gain and fluid retention... you name it. Par for the course with all these issues was a lot of medication, which sometimes made him foggy, cloudy, and drowsy. Perhaps this is the double edged sword of old age... you have ailments so you take medication to help/fix them and instead it creates other issues. Dad wasn't thinking clearly in his last few years and even took to filling his home with survivalist materials and stockpiling food. For what? I have no clue... but I didn't understand the depth of all this fear he had developed until I walked in his home after he died.

On a nearly weekly basis I have complete strangers (friends to my dad though) come to me and tell me they're so sorry about what's happening... that they had discussed will planning and succession of his business or property. My dad was a business owner and resident of the same town for nearly 30 years and he knew a lot of people. To have all these people coming to me with this similar story... "He always told me you would inherit and take care of everything and do with it as you wished. He had a lot of faith in you. He always said he hated to say it about his oldest son but something was just wired wrong and he had given him more than his fair share of chances. Even I knew your older brother was disinherited."

Again though... as several of you have said.... Dad let me down on this.

I am coming to terms this week with the idea that maybe he had certain intentions and wishes but he didn't write them. And that very simple act (which seemed so monumental to dad and to most people I think, because it requires you to ACKNOWLEDGE your own mortality!) was simply not done. Which leaves me where I am... with everyone's memory of what dad had truly wanted and absolutely no way for me to give those wishes any regard. The law doesn't make room for publicly known wishes or group consensus of what a man said over and over throughout his life.

This situation I am in is not fair to me or to my dad and what I saw him work so hard to build. It's also not fair to his employees or the people he loved and knew as friends. It's a slap in all our faces to see his things divided up and tossed around.

Still... in my opinion, the most disgusting part of all this... is that this is only really serving to be fair to my oldest brother. The one who in my dad's words "took more than his fair share" during dad's life.
 

tranquility

Senior Member
Just to make it clear and to keep you from false hope, if there wasn't a will (or trust) the estate will be distributed by intestate succession. Nothing else you've mentioned will matter in the least.
 

xylene

Senior Member
Your brother is being unreasonable in his approach, and thats lame. However noble the mission, people, esp not your fiance, should be using Dad's car until the estate is divided.

You need to open your mind to the notion that the division of the estate might be exactly what dad wanted, whatever he might have told you or the townspeople.

He could have told you and them that to shame your brother for his disgraceful behavior.

Maybe he told you and them that because he was proud of you and wanted it known how much he loved you.

OR

You can procede as you are, thinking dad was just too ill, too doped up, to prideful to disinherit your brother and now you are being robbed.

--- --- --- ---

One of these approaches is going to lead to acceptance, resolution and reconciliation with the your fathers legacy and maybe even your brother.

The other approach is a path of bitterness, with scant chance of resolution let alone reconciliation.

Because whichever attitude / mental approach to this matter you chose, the estate will be divided. Why walk away bitter?
 

Betty

Senior Member
Yep - in this case no matter what the situation is with your brother, since there was no will, estate assets will be distributed per intestate succession. Did your dad have life ins. - the proceeds would pass outside the estate (unless estate is bene) & go to the bene(s) named in the policy to do with as they wish.
 

tatbense

Junior Member
Well...

In regards to being bitter... I am every bit the beacon of possitive thinking normally. I read "The Secret". I believe negativity creates more negativity. But, in all due respect... having a mentally ill relative who feels no remorse for hurtful actions, is physically capable of hurting people and has acted on that before to the point of being incarcerated... well, bitter is really beside the point. Facts are facts and this is not a human being I wish to associate with and only am thinking of him now because of this situation. I cut off all contact with him before this and I will after it. I don't carry that baggage with me normally... it's just a ridiculous complicated detail I have to deal with right now.

As to my finacee driving my dad's car... Again, I respect your comments. But, my dad was in the car business. He had many vehicles. Further, my finacee and I flew across the country in the middle of the night after dad's heart attack. I had little money for funeral plans, let alone to rent a car when my dad had an entire car lot full of cars. My attorney saw nothing wrong with our using company vehicles as long as we have a valid license and my brother only minded it because he wanted something to hang and rave about at 2am. It could have been a hangnail he screamed about... it happened to have been a car in this instance.

As to the possibility my dad wanted to shame my brother (who lived 5 states away for the last 17 years), this is not possible. My brother doesn't feel shame, remorse, regret, or apologetic. Never has and never will. Alcohol further fueled this but from the time he was a pre-teen my oldest brother has not felt emotions quite the same way you or I might.

There will never be a reconciliation with my brother. If my mother, other brother, and family members will be lucky... he will drink himself to a quiet, non-painful death. I don't wish terrible harm to him. I just don't wish to keep poking myself in the eye with a sharp stick. People seem to understand phsyical violence and sexual violence and would never ask or expect victims to look their attackers in the face and reconcile... I'm not sure why violent mental illness victims are so often expected to do that impossible task.

That is not me walking away bitter. That is just me wanting to walk away in one piece (mentally and emotionally).

Thanks again for everyone's words of wisdom.
 

moburkes

Senior Member
Just curious. Why would you blame a person with a mental disorder for their actions?

But, not blame a father who didn't take the time to finalize what you say were his wishes?
 

tatbense

Junior Member
I do blame them both.

In the limited space of my posts here it's hard perhaps for you to understand the complicated emotions I have on the issue. I do blame my dad for not following through with the paperwork aspect of his wishes. That's been hard to accept and come to terms with. And, like I said, it's a complicated feeling... because there are circumstances that I understand and have sympathy for.

However, after giving my brother over two decades of my understanding and patiences and money and time and you name it.... I was done awhile ago. Some call that "tough love", I guess. I call it moving on. I moved on. He didn't feel sorry for anything he did to me over the years or the things he did to my mother or brother or dad. I now no longer have sympathy for him. From the time he woke to the time he went to bed, when he was in my life my oldest brother took every step to let me know that I "owed" him something.

I don't expect you to understand that and I never really discuss it in public situations because most people don't understand those feelings. It, incidentally, doesn't mean I don't love my brother. It just means I love him enough to not stand by and participate in his destructiveness.
 

moburkes

Senior Member
Okay. The bottom line, though, is that the law will dstribute the assets of the estate in accordance with the law, not in accordance with how you thought your dad should have done things.
 

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