What should be put in the estate?

What is the name of your state? Wisconsin.

My mother died in May of 2005 and her estate is still open. I had an estate attorney come to her home and do a will for her, and I was the power of attorney. After my mom passed away, right away and took care of funeral expenses for her and received the monies that my mom had in a 401k and a life insurance policy. She also had an apartment that she lived in and paid $127,000 for rights to live in the apartment. She did not own the apartment but with the big up front monies she gave them, she was able to live there for as long as she wanted and she paid a monthly maintenance fee.

After the money was divided between my siblings, I have three siblings and myself, I was thinking about the place where my mom lived and how things over there did not make sense for all of the elderly people to pay these up front costs like they are buying something when in fact they are not. So the estate attorney had another attorney in the office who took a look at the case that I wanted to proceed against the place where my mom lived. Now this was nothing that was thought of while my mom was alive, it was never ever talked about once, my mother and I never discussed anything about going against this place where she lived.

After all the monies were taken care of, I decided to hire this other attorney to go after the place where my mom lived, I alone did all the foot work, went to hearings, etc., none of my siblings wanted anything to do with it. All they were worried about was getting their money. I worked on that case along with this attorney for two years, and I also got other people to join in this to go against the place where they lived. They offered a settlement on behalf of what I did in the amount of $100,000.00 and after attorney costs and fees, it ended up being around $52,000.00.

Now the estate attorney first thought that she should have gotten some sort of money because she gave this case to another attorney, and he never gave her any money. The estate attorney then proceeded to tell me that this had to be part of the estate, and had to be divided four ways. The attorney who won the case for me did not feel this should be part of the estate, but he was not an estate attorney.

I did not feel this was part of the estate, and I do not feel as though this money should have to be divided with my siblings at all. What if one of my siblings decided to do this on their own after our mom's death and did all the work. Would that sibling then have to turn around and divided that money up four ways?

I have given the money to two of my siblings which I did not want to do and did not feel I should have had to, but the other sibling, which we never got along ever, told me she did not want any part of this case I was doing, and would not talk to the attorney and would not go to any hearings, would not in any way whatsoever have her name involved. My other two siblings thought the same way as her. So that sibling, I have yet to give her the fourth of her supposed share.

In retrospect, I should not have given any money to any of my siblings, it was something I did after the fact, and I alone thought about it and did something about this. There is now a class action suit against the place where my mom lived with my case settled.

My question is, do you agree with me that this should not of been part of the estate settlement of my mom's? Please respond, as I am thinking about hiring another attorney to get the money back from the other two siblings, as the one sibling who did not received a fourth, is threatening to get an attorney to get her fourth. The attorney I had for the estate, does not answer phone calls, does not return my phone calls, does not respond to letters that I have written to inquire as to why the estate is still open and it will be three years this May.

Any assistance or thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

Sherry

What type of "aparatment" did he live in--a condo, assisted living facility, a regular apartment, what? Your posting is vague when you say she paid "$127,000" for the "rights" to live in an apartment--what was she paying for or who actually owned it? Or was she just paying normal rent?

Was the settlement check made out to you alone?

When the settlement was done, who actually retained ownership of the place, the company who settled with you or you, representing the decedent?

Did you sign a settlement agreement? What type of court was this heard in?

DANDY DON IN OKLAHOMA ([email protected])

You should deduct all of the cost and effort you made before considering a split with the other siblings. Your efforts could easily amount to the $50,000 in remaining assets.

curb 1 in regard to the estate

Thank you for the response. I did all the leg work for the attornies. I contacted over probably 50 different indivuals who lived over at the 55 and above facility. I also contacted family members of deceased parents who lived over there but have now passed on.

When my mom was dying I realized a lot of things about where my mom lived and I had many questions. It was after my mom's death and after receiving the proceeds and dividing it up between myself and my three siblings, that I decided by myself to pursue a claim against the place where my mom lived.

I worked on this case for two years or a little more. My siblings had nothing to do with it, they did not help in any way, as a matter of fact, they wanted nothing to do with this claim.

It was not something included in my mom's will, as it was something that was not even talked about or even of concern until after her death.

I spent probably between 50 to 75 hours working on this case. Thanks for any response you may have.

Sherry Schutz

sherryschutz said:

....My question is, do you agree with me that this should not of been part of the estate settlement of my mom's? Please respond, as I am thinking about hiring another attorney to get the money back from the other two siblings, as the one sibling who did not received a fourth, is threatening to get an attorney to get her fourth.....
Sherry

Click to expand...

No, I do not agree. It should be part of the estate and your time and efforts to recover this money should be reflected in the estate administration fee that you ask the court to approve.

Even if your opinion is correct that it shuld not be part off the estate, what grounds do you have for recovering the gifts that you gave to the 2 siblings?

It was not something included in my mom's will, as it was something that was not even talked about or even of concern until after her death.

Click to expand...

That is irrelevant. Lots of assets are not specifically mentioned in wills. That does not mean that those assets are not part of the probate estate.

mom;s estate - Dandy Don

Don:

Thank you for your response. I will try to put everything into words here, forgive me if it becomes rather lengthy.

My mom lived in a 55 and over facility. It was essentially apartments that you had to put up this big large sum of money before moving in. In my mom's case, it was $127,000. She did not have all the money, so she needed to borrow some, the board in the facility where my mom was going to live, told her a bank in town that they use and they send all the elderly people there to obtain a loan and my mom went there and borrowed what she needed. She then turned around and gave the secretary of the board the check for $127,000.

My mom did not receive anything in regards to ownership, as the people who live there do not own anything. She signed a contract to live there. On top of this money, my mom and everyone there had to pay a maintenance fee, which was $230.00 a month. There are 66 units over there, so that equals $15,180.00 a month that the board receives just for maintenance. Then if you figure it further, it equals out to $182,160 a year that the board brings in just for maintenance charges.

Now the money that each individual gives in order to live in one of the apartments, the board turns around and invests that money with Edward Jones among others. So then I was figuring, well lets do a low ballpark figure here and say that everyone paid $80,000 to live in a unit. With that being said, that equals out to $5,280,000 that they have to invest and make money off of.

In those 66 units, if you stop and think about even if say 8 units become available a year, at that price of $80,000 and the board then turns around and re-rents at a higher price which is always in the area of $20,000 to $45,000 more, that is an additional $160,000 at $20,000 more and if we use the higher number it ends up being 360,000 of additional monies that the board has made.

I should also state here, they are a non-profit organization. They were given the land to build these units on from the village for $1.00. So I began thinking about all of this money they are making on these elderly people and it started to make me really mad. I know a lot of the individuals who live over there and I listen to them complain about this or that not getting done, etc......

In my mom's case, her contract was suppose to terminate on the date of her death. It did not. They had me believing that I had to continue paying montly maintenance, water bill and electricity until they found someone to re-rent the unit. I did this for a couple of months, and then talked to my estate attorney about it, she researched and sent a letter to the board indicating that I would not be making any more payments.

They sit on these units for as long as they feel like it, because they are still making money on the unit, the people are paying all the necessary bills for the unit, and they are still using the person's money to make more money.

It took them 6 1/2 months to re-rent my mom's unit. It was not until they had the new person's money in hand, before they would write me a check. So what they do is keep10% of what the individual person paid for their unit, and pay back the bank if money is owed to them and then cut a check to the personal rep, which was me. The check was for $62,000 and what they did was subtracted four months of maintenance that I did not pay on the advise of my estate attorney.

It was after that, that I became very upset with this place and how they do their business. That is when there was another attorney renting office space from my estate attorney, and it just so happened that this is the kind of law he practices. He took my mom's case home for the weekend, and called me on Monday and said he would love to represent me in this matter against this facility.

I do not know what to call this facility, as they say different things to different people, they call them condos, apartments, ect**************.

So the money from the estate, my mom's life insurance and her 401k was distributed to myself and my three siblings. As far as I was concerned, that was it for the estate.

I ended up doing an awful lot of research and the leg work for the attorney and helped work on the case for a little over two years. I went to despositions, etc...... They made an offer to me, which I declined, and then came back with an offer of $100,000. I took that settlement.

So the law firm for the other side, wrote out a check to the law firm that my attorney worked for, and then he in turn, after taking out attorney costs, fees, etc.... wrote out a check to the estate. Under the memo, it states Schutz settlement. My attorney did not want to write the check to the estate, as he did not believe it should have been part of the estate.

I do not believe it was either. I thought to myself, well what if one of my other siblings decided to go after this place and one of them received a settlement, would it have been for the estate, or just for the person who did it and worked on it????????

Another thing, I think the estate attorney thought because I was the person rep, that it should go to the estate. I told her numerous times, that I did not believe this should be part of the estate.

It was nothing that was even thought about when my mom was alive, or when she was dying. It was months after her death, that I proceeded on to do this suit. It was in the circuit courts, and there are now five other people going after this place, and it may go to the supreme courts.

Any advise someone could give me would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Sherry Schutz

I think you are right. This was a separate situation than the estate. You can value your effort to the amount that was reclaimed. Your effort was entirely responsible for the amount obtained.