Walling Off Gold Digger Heirs in a Cloud of Cognitive Impairment

[TheKingfish]

Posting for a friend (Molly). Highlights:
1) Married for many years, Molly’s husband Max is in a diagnosed early stage of dementia.
2) Within the last ten years two sons have emerged. Fathered by Max prior to their marriage, both were born out of wedlock to different women.
3) Molly was unaware of these sons until recently. M&M have no children.
4) While she has a strained but cordial relationship with these men, Molly sees them as gold diggers relative to their estate.
5) M&M live in Michigan and currently have only a bare-bones will that mentions the sons.
6) Unlike Max, Molly wants no prominent role for the sons in their estate settlement. If she were to die first, Molly fears the sons would enjoy the entire fruits of their long life together.

Molly plans to consult an attorney soon but wants to get a feel for what options she might have; as in what lies ahead (???). A dichotomy, Max seems to have the unusual dual role of loved-patient and adversary. Any thoughts on this?
Thanks,
TheKingfish

 

[Taxing Matters]

She doesn't have to give everything of hers to her husband should she die first, though she likely cannot cut him out completely either. She can leave stuff to charity, other relatives, etc., if she wants. She can put her assets in trust so that they can be used by her husband for his needs while he still lives and then the trust gives out whatever is left to the people she wants to get them. What she can't do is give stuff to him and then control what he does with it. It's a good idea for her to consult an estate planning attorney.

 

[xylene]

Molly should work on not dying first then.

 

[Dandy Don]

What state is involved here?

The will "mentions" the sons how--are they going to receive any thing from the estate or nothing?

As a spouse, she is automatically entitled by law to a certain portion of the estate and her attorney can tell her what that is.

It's understandable that she is concerned about protecting assets but neither she, nor you, should be describing his family as "gold digging heirs". They are family members/sons who are entitled to receive whatever their father wants them to have.

 

[LdiJ]

Posting for a friend (Molly). Highlights:
1) Married for many years, Molly’s husband Max is in a diagnosed early stage of dementia.
2) Within the last ten years two sons have emerged. Fathered by Max prior to their marriage, both were born out of wedlock to different women.
3) Molly was unaware of these sons until recently. M&M have no children.
4) While she has a strained but cordial relationship with these men, Molly sees them as gold diggers relative to their estate.
5) M&M live in Michigan and currently have only a bare-bones will that mentions the sons.
6) Unlike Max, Molly wants no prominent role for the sons in their estate settlement. If she were to die first, Molly fears the sons would enjoy the entire fruits of their long life together.

Molly plans to consult an attorney soon but wants to get a feel for what options she might have; as in what lies ahead (???). A dichotomy, Max seems to have the unusual dual role of loved-patient and adversary. Any thoughts on this?
Thanks,
TheKingfish

Who does Molly want to inherit the assets?

 

[not2cleverRed]

Posting for a friend (Molly). Highlights:
1) Married for many years, Molly’s husband Max is in a diagnosed early stage of dementia.
2) Within the last ten years two sons have emerged. Fathered by Max prior to their marriage, both were born out of wedlock to different women.
3) Molly was unaware of these sons until recently. M&M have no children.
4) While she has a strained but cordial relationship with these men, Molly sees them as gold diggers relative to their estate.
5) M&M live in Michigan and currently have only a bare-bones will that mentions the sons.
6) Unlike Max, Molly wants no prominent role for the sons in their estate settlement. If she were to die first, Molly fears the sons would enjoy the entire fruits of their long life together.

Molly plans to consult an attorney soon but wants to get a feel for what options she might have; as in what lies ahead (???). A dichotomy, Max seems to have the unusual dual role of loved-patient and adversary. Any thoughts on this?
Thanks,
TheKingfish

I'm going to make the obvious observation that Molly should be more concerned about changes that her husband (whose dementia is only going to get worse), might be "convinced" to make, should he pass before her. This is especially something that she should be aware of and address if there are assets not currently jointly held, and which she might be counting on.

I'm going to make a second obvious observation: considering Molly has no children of her own, she seems awfully controlling to not want her husband's children to benefit at all from Molly and Max's passing.

Her husband fathered 2 sons, that she knows of, prior to marrying her. These men grew up without the benefit of a meaningful relationship with their father. There is no indication that Max fathered these children as a sperm donor to a clinic, and apparently Max never paid child support. If you run the numbers, and add interest onto the hypothetical arrears the mothers of Max's children never received, I suspect that would come to a hefty amount. Nothing can undo that. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

Were her husband not in the early stages of dementia, he might be on here asking how he could ensure that his children received at least something, should he predecease his wife. And we would tell him that he can allocate his solely owned assets in his will, but he cannot dictate from the grave what his wife does with her assets.

Max and Molly need to have a frank talk about who they want to inherit what after they both pass, and plan accordingly. They should also be mindful that the cost of care for someone with dementia can be steep, and the whole subject might be moot.

 

[Ohiogal]

Molly sounds like a gold digger quite frankly.

 

[PayrollHRGuy]

She may not be a gold digger but she ain't messin' with no broke...

I really could not resist posting that.

 

[Ohiogal]

She may not be a gold digger but she ain't messin' with no broke...

I really could not resist posting that.

Yeah.. I don't like Kanye but he had that down... and TheKingfish is a friend of Molly -- wonder if he is waiting in the wings.

 

[t74]

There is always the divorce option ...

If you cannot be a couple working towards a common goal, why bother being married. If you cannot trust your spouse, why bother being married.

Seriously, if the wife has this as a major issue in her life, she needs to attend counseling and decide whether her husband or the money is more important to her.

What would be an interesting question to have answered is if either of the sons would step up and care for their father is Molly were not around to do so. Similarly, who will care for Molly if she were to be old and alone and the sons were to be included in their combined estate plan?

 

[TheKingfish]

I want to thank all those who posted thoughtful responses. Carving out a path for life’s unexpected challenges can be an overwhelming undertaking. Max is my longtime friend (22+ years) who I meet weekly. Like Molly up close, I have witnessed his precarious decline.

After allowing my post a full week to gather what I hoped would be helpful advice, my wife and I met with Molly to both share the forum feedback and counsel her. As expected, we all learned from that joint experience. Some highlights:

1) M&M have no existing will. Max believes they have such a document, but his impairment feeds that perception. Molly knows he recently added the sons as beneficiaries to his life insurance policy, so she feels that contributed to his sense of having a will.
2) Max has always been in charge of family finances, so Molly is extremely challenged by the learning curve that confronts her.
3) Molly considered divorce on several occasions; two such major stressors came when Max revealed his paternity. In light of his current health condition, Molly has totally ruled out divorce.
4) Max holds personal pride in his late-life father status, but his relationship with his sons is distant (different states; rare connectivity).
5) Molly’s share of a divided estate would go to her siblings and their offspring.
6) Even though Max is unlikely to retain such a conversation, Molly plans to have an estate planning session with him soon; to understand his wishes and to stress the need for a will. Following that she plans to meet singularly with an attorney.

In the end, Molly is in a difficult situation where her first responsibility is to care for her husband. Her second responsibility is to herself; the peace of mind that comes from achieving a measure of fairness for the collective wealth their lives have generated.
Thank you,
TheKingfish

 

[t74]

They are lucky to have a friend like you. It sounds like she is on her way to putting her mind at ease with this concern.

In my community there are bonded professionals that can be engaged to handle the finances of those unfamiliar with doing so. These are not affiliated with firms that sell investment options. Unfortunately, all are not as ethical as one would like so the selection of the person or firm to do so is extremely important. Molly may want to investigate this option; the estate planning attorney may be able to suggest options such as this or an similar alternative for her to consider both to assist her now or to take over in the event of her death. Remind her to discuss the requirements of guardianship for Max is she is unable to do it; it would be far better for it to be their/her decision rather than leaving it to the court.

I will warn about one scam an estate planning attorney tried to sell us; he was also an insurance sales person and wanted us to cash out all of our accounts and purchase insurance/annuities from him. Please suggest that she also have a financial professional as well as the attorney explain the financial implications of the estate plan especially if there are recommendations to make major changes to what Max has set up.

 

[commentator]

Molly needs to blow every cent of money that ol' Max has on caring for him and living well right now. If he is still well enough to object, he's obviously still capable of doing estate planning.

 

[TheKingfish]

As a forum advocate and post-initiator I always like to close out a topic; so that participants can see what benefits accrue (if any) from this very public problem-solving assistance vehicle. My wife and I had lunch with Molly this past week to receive her good news about a finalized trust. The highlights:

1) With Molly taking the lead, she and Max interviewed three [3] different attorneys, learning along the way and settling upon one. For their case, they found each attorney recommended a trust, as opposed to a will.
2) While we do not know and did not pursuit the details of their trust, we know Molly is quite satisfied with the final outcome/document. She is also pleased to have it behind her.
3) Max’s degree of cognitive impairment was never an issue. All three attorneys knew of his early-onset condition and judged it to be a non-factor.
4) Toward the very end of the process, one of the sons visited from out of state. This act was both stressful on Molly and not appreciated by her. Not surprisingly, she learned from Max that son had privately broached him on the subject; influence thought to be minimal.
5) In the end, upon Molly’s first-death, the document stipulates that one of Max’s sons and one of Molly’s sisters will share the trustee duties equally.

This was ultimately a satisfying outcome for us, as Molly now has a document where there was none before – and she is satisfied on a personal level. In closing, I again want to thank all those who posted thoughtful responses here to assist in this challenging situation.
Thank you,
TheKingfish

 

[Dandy Don]

Let's hope that the will has been destroyed and that any necessary assets have been titled into the trust.

It's a good sign that one of Max's sons has been named as a co-trustee, but more importantly someone needs to ask her if one or both of the sons have been mentioned in the trust as beneficiaries. Let's hope that Molly sympathizes with Max's interest in welcoming his sons and let's hope that Max left something to both sons in the trust. If they are not named, then there is a chance that the sons might decide to contest the trust which might result in needless legal expense in a lawsuit that could be avoided by proper planning.