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wills sister in charge

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maryhoet

Guest
General question to anyone: My sister lives with my father who is elderly. She will be in charge of the will when he passes away. My father does not fix up the house, and she states, she is going to fix up the house, pay for it out of her pocket, and it will be deducted out of my inheritance? Can she do this? My father does not care if the house is fixed up or not. She has lived rent free, not one bill, for all her life. She is 43 now. She claims she can't move out because she "has to take care of my father", which she does do, but not to any great extent. Living rent free with no bills, she pockets her pay check into the bank every week, goes on fancy vacations, etc. She has no bills. Can she threaten me that the house needs to be fixed up, and she will deduct this from my inheritance? Help.
 


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advisor10

Guest
(01-18-2001)


Your sister CANNOT use your inheritance to spend as she wishes for any reason, including house repair. She will be in SERIOUS trouble if she does so and someone should warn her in advance that it is a breach of her duty for which she can be held liable.

However it is a little bit premature for you to be worrying about this since your elderly father is still alive. What you can do is to communicate with your father that whenever he does have his will drawn up, that arrangements should be made by him that a certain designated person (not just the executor) but someone else in the family (if possible) can have copies of the will distributed to everyone in the family so EVERYONE can know what is going on. The most important thing you can do now is to urge your father to have the will done if he has not done so already--after he is gone it will be too difficult to handle things if he hasn't made arrangements.

It seems like your sister is trying to tease you or "rub it in" by letting you know that she plans to be in charge. Just ignore her for now and let her have her glory/attention.

Also make sure that your father lets someone in the family know the name of the funeral home that will be handling his affairs when he dies. If he hasn't already set up a prepaid plan with the funeral home, at least everyone in the family should know his wishes so there will not be confusion about what company will be handling things when he dies.

Your sister will probably consult with an attorney (that's assuming that she is even named executor--it might be someone else). Don't just assume that if she is named as a beneficiary that she will be completely in charge, because she won't. WHOEVER IS NAMED THE EXECUTOR WILL BE IN CHARGE. After the will is filed at the county courthouse, you can go there to look at it and any other documents in the file that show how the financial affairs were handled. If she has done something wrong and stolen funds from a beneficiary, there will be a track record if something doesn't look right, and you can proceed from there to get a probate/estate attorney and file charges to get your monies back.

SINCERELY,

[email protected]
 
A

advisor10

Guest
(01-20-2001)

There is another factor that I forgot to mention in my previous response.

In many states or counties, the executor is required to purchase an "EXECUTOR'S BOND" (similar to insurance policy).
The bond is equal to the entire value of the estate, and the executor pays only a modest premiums.

Your interests as as beneficiary are protected, because if she makes the mistake of spending monies that were intended for you, you can file a claim against the bond company to have the bond company pay YOU your money.

You will have to speak to a probate attorney in your local area to find out whether or not she will be required to post an executor's bond at the time the decedent dies, but I would not worry about doing this until the death actually occurs, as you might need his advice for other things.

SINCERELY,

[email protected]
 

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