@bookworm — I wonder if there was some undiagnosed medical condition that caused her to change so dramatically.
We did help a loved one get an estate attorney to come to her house, confer with her, get documents drawn up and fully executed all over the weekend. She died peacefully on Monday.
Alcoholism is a horrible terrible disease unfortunately. And the longer it goes on, the more terrible things become. And it can’t be undone even if the person stops drinking which many times doesn’t happen
Yes, and alcohol problems are growing among older women at the greatest rate. My friend was barely 60 when her husband died, but she already used alcohol too much, and needed surgery after a drunken fall. (I stayed with her husband during the surgery.) Her husband was a lovely person, and he grounded her. I connected her with a psychiatrist, a director of a small residential treatment center for women with alcohol problems, etc. I did my best for at least a year, but she wouldn’t apologize to her children. Anyway, enough details. My point is, leave your money to whom you wish, but don’t count on anyone to do what you wish they would do.
My uncle married again and didn’t update his will. He died shortly after and the new wife got 1/3 of his estate. His two kids were very unhappy.
It’s almost 4 am and I have to leave at 6 for the airport. My sister and I had my mom’s jewelry appraised Friday. It felt like Antique Roadshow. Some pieces we thought were valuable were only costume jewelry, but some ugly pieces, such as a weird monkey with an opal, were really valuable. The highlight was the national football championship ring my dad got when UT was #1 in 2005 (he was Chair of the Men’s Athletic Council and everyone on the Council got one). Not even considering its collector value, it’s worth a whole heck of a lot of money. Not sure who will get that eventually. But we started dividing up the rest of the jewelry and it’s going pretty well. It helps that we have different tastes. We will let our daughters choose some items, too. It’s kind of fun. I know Mom would be pleased.
@MaineLonghorn —sounds like things are going well. I’m so glad! Take care of yourself!
This makes me kind of sad because your late nephew would have been the obvious choice, to me, for the ring. 
I think I posted above about my MIL who wanted to leave the vacation house to all four kids though only three and then two wanted to pay to maintain it. She did this 20 years ago and because ownership was actually unclear, no one paid more than the minimum to maintain it and over time, it deteriorated substantially. My wife and her sister eventually bought it from the other two, but another sister (and especially her husband) somehow expect that they can use it when they want to. It will be awkward.
Tell them they may not.Change the lock. Put a blink camera, call the cops if they trspass.
Very true. My sister is not big on UT anymore since they rejected Nephew. She is getting Mom’s 1.5 carat diamond ring so maybe I will request the championship ring. It starts to feel like Monopoly money.
Finally got an update from sis. Apparently she was “lied to bigtime by last attorney and will be filing claims when this is all over.”
And apparently someone, somewhere has told her she’s doing everything right. (sigh)
I asked her if she had a new lawyer yet and was told no, “due to the buddy, buddy system” where she lives.
I swear this is slower than soap operas are/were (are they still on TV?).
I reminded her that I should be closing up mom’s estate in late Sept, two years after mom’s death and three after dad’s. She hasn’t made any significant progress with dad’s. He’d totally recognize his places and stuff if he came back to life. Only some accounts have been cancelled, one comforter and two, maybe three, guns have been sold. Oh, and she cut down some walnut trees and supposedly has the wood sold.
I’m leaving some things to my husband and some to my kids. To my husband it is going to go into a trust F/B/O. The reason being is not so much if he remarries, but because when he dies, I don’t want my money to go to his kids. So if it is all in trust, it then reverts back to my kids as the next beneficiary after him. That would also protect the funds from going to any spouse shall he remarry.
But 100% if someone has kids and they want to make sure their kids are protected, then you need to make sure a new spouse doesn’t screw the kids out of what they are entitled to. This happened to my cousin and when her father died, she wound up getting completely shut out.
That is honestly so nervy of them. Sounds like they waived their rights to it when your wife and sister in law bought them out. They had their chances, so I would tell them to kiss off. Of course easier said then done. I guess that will be a challenge, but perhaps just say it’s being used during the times when they ask if they want to use it. Your wife and her sister will need to put on a united front, but terrible. They already profited from it, why should they again? Maybe your wife offers to rent it out to them. Unbelievable what families think they can get away with.
@Hippobirdy Good one!
@srparent15, we have a trust that is for the benefit of ShawWife, me and our kids and subsequent generations. I do not believe that if one of us dies and the other remarries, the trustee can distribute to the the new spouse.
I set up a similar trust for ShawSon when he was with a prior GF to own his shares in his startup. With lots of hard work (which he is doing) and some luck, his shares could be worth quite a bit. Because I am the grantor (and the trust purchased his shares in an arms-length transaction) and there is an independent trustee, the trust gives the assets in the trust a fair degree of protection from lawsuits. The beneficiaries are ShawSon, a qualified spouse, and his progeny. A qualified spouse is someone to whom he is married. So, if he and a spouse divorce and he later dies, the spouse would not be entitled to receive distributions.
Yes, sounds like you have done some good planning and that’s what you want. It is sad that we have to think this way these days because ofc one marries and thinks it’s forever but you just never know.
I swear, it’s a good thing that I just can’t sit back & let my H’s family be passive about things. I was the one who told my FIL he was not allowed to drive anymore - his wife & kids didn’t have the guts.
H’s mom has always been amazing with money. However, I noticed last year that she wasn’t on top of things like she used to be. I told H that we needed to take on the bills for the cottage we are supposed to inherit, because his parents put his name on the deed already. He did convince his mom to let us handle utility bills. But because she is adamant that he doesn’t really own it (until she dies & he buys out his sister’s share), she refused to let him handle taxes or insurance.
I found out last night that his mom wants his sister to help her pay bills (she put her name on the account & gave her a checkbook). My SIL doesn’t do a good job of paying her own bills, so I told H that he has to change the address on the cottage tax & insurance bills to our address. With his name on the deed, we can’t afford to have late or missed payments. I told him we will just pay everything related to the cottage.
When I went to the assessor’s website to get the contact information, I pulled up the tax records. 2020 taxes were paid a year late, in March 2021 … the taxes due in March 2021 are overdue … and summer taxes are due this month. I told him he needs to go to the assessor’s office ASAP to pay the bills & change the address to ours. And he needs to make sure that the homeowner’s insurance is paid.
Yikes!
You are smart. We didn’t realize how much our mom was slipping. She was always a meticulous bookkeeper. But when I visited a couple of years ago, I discovered several overdue notices in her office. We also found an uncashed check for over $8,000! It was about a year old but thankfully the bank accepted it.
She was pretty upset when my dad hired a bookkeeper to take over. The woman realized my mom was “helping” in the QuickBooks file. I told the bookkeeper to make a copy of the file that Mom could access and hide the real file. It’s tough. 
Not putting the real estate in a trust doesn’t make problems of how to split the property go away. And it forces the property to go thru probate in some states such as CA; this is both time consuming (as in taking over a year) and expensive. With a trust whatever was decided for the future of the property can be done simply and quickly by the successor trustee.
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@FallGirl, can you provide a bit more detail, without harming anyone’s privacy, but to allow us all to hear the salient details?