Two Plus Two Newer Archives  

Go Back   Two Plus Two Newer Archives > 2+2 Communities > Other Other Topics

Closed Thread
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 11-26-2007, 01:10 AM
reallybadwill reallybadwill is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 2
Default Am I being cheated out of my inheritance?

I have a number of difficult legal questions regarding my recently deceased parents and the execution of their will. I'm totally unfamiliar with the law involved, and although I have been dealing in good faith up to this point it seems increasingly likely that I will have to retain legal representation. Would anyone who has familiarity with this area offer advice? (obvious disclaimers apply, no replies will be taken as expert or authoritative, this is not my usual account and I have obsfucated some trivial details of the case).

Cliffs notes: My parents leave $3 million estate to me and my two siblings in a trust. My siblings manipulate and browbeat my elderly mother into writing me out of her will, and then proceed to withhold all financial records for the other share, insisting that I take a obviously rigged settlement.

Long version:

My father died relatively young from heart disease, and upon his death his will was written to establish a trust containing all of his net worth, including a considerable amount of Midwestern farming land (which he farmed until he died) and many other real-estate investments. The total value is thought by me to be approximately $3 million US. I don't know exactly for reasons that I am about to go into. He was a very fair-minded man, and his will specified that exactly 1/3 of his property would go to each of his three children. He wrote my mother's will for her also with the same provisions.

My mother survived him, and for the remainder of her life was provided for by the considerable estate and by the cooperation of me and my brother and my sister. Her needs were extraordinarily modest and were almost entirely supplied by social security, so the trust continued to appreciate in value until she passed away about 14 months ago.

My brother took over the farms and continued to administer the trust during her life - he was paid $32k a year from the trust for the effort. My sister had no real interaction with the properties.

During the last few years I was given a lot of money from my mother to help provide for my family, because I am a single parent and my work was irregular. The total amount probably was between $120k to $140k. My mother provided it because she was an extremely generous person and I appreciated it fully, and she spent many years during that period living with my family in the southwest especially as she grew frail.

Shortly before she died, both siblings went to my mother and insisted that the money she had given me was unfairly provided and should be removed from my portion of the (eventual) inheritance when she died and the trust was dissolved. I agreed in principle to the idea, but asked for an accounting to be made so we could determine how much the deduction would be. In response my brother went to my mother, and got her to sign a series of amendments to the will indicating:

a. There would be no accounting at that time or after her death as to how much money was given to me.
b. I would be removed entirely as a beneficiary from my mother's portion of the trust.

My mother unfortunately at that time was extremely naive about the amount of money she was leaving to her children, and believed my brother when he said that her gifts to me far exceeded my portion of the trusts. She was rather elderly and had long since given away all management of her finances to my brother. She signed the amendments and when I learned of them, I did not choose to contest them because I loved my mother and didn't wish for a family quarrel over her inheritance to erupt while she was still living. I was afraid the division in her family would devastate her in her last years.

My siblings were totally aware of the amount of the money involved, and certainly made a very cold calculation about how they could benefit from my mother's ignorance and my reluctance to engage them about what I knew was rank and dishonest. Honestly I cared much less about the money than I did about my mother dying in peace.

After my mother passed away, my brother was made executor of the will and proceeded to administer the disbursement of the trust. This amounted to about $1.5 million for each parent, of which I was entitled to nothing from my mother, and 1/3 of my father's half, or about $500,000 mostly in the form of his farms.

My siblings both decided they wanted to keep the entirely of the farmlands willed to the family, because good midwestern farmland is a surprisingly good investment at the moment (due in part to speculation on ethanol production). In fact this kind of property has appreciated almost 10% in the past year. I said that I'd take my share in cash any way the trust could provide, be it selling other properties or by loans financed against the farmland.

Since my mother's death, I have repeatedly asked for copies of the valuation of my parent's properties. My brother who is also the executor will not send them to me - instead he has offered repeatedly to provide me with titles or cash if I so desire, but he is unwilling to share any records of the management of the trust, or indeed even the appraisal of its total value. At the time of my mother's death he provided me verbally with a number ($485,000) which he said was my share, then when I asked for documentation he simply never sent any records or the money. Given that I am not disposed to trust him at all due to the way he handled my mother, I would certainly refuse a check until I had been provided with a trustworthy account of the value of the estates.

The affair is complicated by the fact that this stonewall has been going on for 14 months now, and I believe that I should be entitled to 1/3 of the income of the farms during that time (which might be as much as $150,000) and that the lands have almost certainly appreciated during that period as well. Recently he made me an offer that said he would pay me $435,000 (which is less money than a year ago??), less the amount of capital gains that he would be required to pay upon liquidating one of the farms to raise the money. Yes, he demanded that I pay his capital gains taxes since I was forcing him to sell the property.

Here are the questions I have for any legal minds that understand inheritance law, which I certainly do not.

1. Would it be wise to contest my mother's will this late? Although there is no doubt in my mind that she was deceived and unduly influenced by both of my siblings, my understanding is this is very difficult to prove in a legal sense.

2. What legal recourse do I have to ascertain I am being paid fairly my portion of the estate? How can I ascertain that whatever appraisal my brother has performed was honest?

3. Am I entitled to farm income and the increase of value applied to the trust over the last 14 months? My brother seems to be determinedly dragging his heels about executing the will, and when I asked for a reappraisal of the value to bring it to current day, he responded that 'it would be too expensive'.

4. How does capital gains taxes affect these decisions?

5. Should I give my brother (and sister, possibly) a really solid and well leveraged kick in the nuts?

Thanks for any useful comments ahead of time.
  #2  
Old 11-26-2007, 01:15 AM
KneeCo KneeCo is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Kingston, missing Montreal
Posts: 3,976
Default Re: Am I being cheated out of my inheritance?

Get a lawyer.
  #3  
Old 11-26-2007, 01:17 AM
The Owl The Owl is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: lol razzaments
Posts: 103
Default Re: Am I being cheated out of my inheritance?

[ QUOTE ]
Get a lawyer.

[/ QUOTE ]
  #4  
Old 11-26-2007, 01:18 AM
slickpoppa slickpoppa is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 5,588
Default Re: Am I being cheated out of my inheritance?

[ QUOTE ]
Get a lawyer.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nonsense! No lawyer in the world can match the expertise of an OOT poster who just read the wikipedia entry on wills.
  #5  
Old 11-26-2007, 01:27 AM
Golden_Rhino Golden_Rhino is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Nowhere Fast
Posts: 3,879
Default Re: Am I being cheated out of my inheritance?

Give Idi the Nigerian your siblings' email addresses. You may not see any money, but at least they won't either.
  #6  
Old 11-26-2007, 01:35 AM
4 High 4 High is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Team Pretendinitis
Posts: 3,617
Default Re: Am I being cheated out of my inheritance?

Did you bang your sister in front of your brother or something?
  #7  
Old 11-26-2007, 01:37 AM
ginko ginko is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: lol
Posts: 1,076
Default Re: Am I being cheated out of my inheritance?

Get a GOOD lawyer
  #8  
Old 11-26-2007, 01:42 AM
neuroman neuroman is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: the stars at night are big and bright
Posts: 3,774
Default Re: Am I being cheated out of my inheritance?

Pretty sure you have a civil lawsuit against both your brother and your sister (and your mother's estate) for breach of fiduciary duty, constructive fraud, actual fraud, and tortious interference with an expectancy. I would file a case against them in local district court. If you tell us what state you are in, I can look up the appropriate forms for you to use and tell you just how much it would cost to whistle for a cab and when it comes near, the license plate says fresh and it has dice in the mirror, and if anything I could say that cab was rare, but I thought nah forget it, yo home, to bel air.
  #9  
Old 11-26-2007, 01:54 AM
Dale Dough Dale Dough is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 1,043
Default Re: Am I being cheated out of my inheritance?

Wow. You know how people cringe when they see someone else get kicked in the nuts? I don't really have that, or at least less than most.

I make up for that by getting totally monkey-tilted from reading stories about other people getting screwed. I mean I have enough sanity in me not to offer to go and torture your brother and, to a lesser extent, your sister, but just barely. Man oh man I hope he has bad stuff happen to him over this (and you get your fair share obv.)
  #10  
Old 11-26-2007, 01:57 AM
Kimbell175113 Kimbell175113 is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: The art of losing isn\'t hard to master.
Posts: 2,464
Default Re: Am I being cheated out of my inheritance?

[ QUOTE ]
Pretty sure you have a civil lawsuit against both your brother and your sister (and your mother's estate) for breach of fiduciary duty, constructive fraud, actual fraud, and tortious interference with an expectancy. I would file a case against them in local district court. If you tell us what state you are in, I can look up the appropriate forms for you to use and tell you just how much it would cost to whistle for a cab and when it comes near, the license plate says fresh and it has dice in the mirror, and if anything I could say that cab was rare, but I thought nah forget it, yo home, to bel air.

[/ QUOTE ]
[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]
Closed Thread

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 09:36 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.