Most estate work is state law (the federal taxes are of course federal law). Real estate, car titles, wills, etc are state laws. The system is hard because it is developed over hundreds of years of case law, laws passed by legislatures, practice. It is even more complicated now because families are more complicated - step parents, adoptions, gay marriages in states that allowed them when others didn’t, couples who never married, etc. Those forms? Developed by lawyers over the years. Very specific ‘will signing’ laws, how many witnesses required, how the wills are held (by lawyer, by family). Holographic wills (hand written, hand signed) are still allowed in some states. Community property laws. It is really much more complicated than you can imagine. Even the wills you can find online are not appropriate for most people.
My friend is paying a lawyer a lot to create a financial plan as her husband has 2 children (who are OLD, 40 and 50?) from a prior marriage and they would be entitled to a lot if the estate went by state law and not a will or trust. Some of it is even controlled by the divorce that was more than 35 years ago because the children were minors at that time and his attorney was obviously an idiot.
My mother died and I’m going through years of paperwork. I’m running into piles of paperwork from when my father died 4 years ago and she didn’t throw it out. Tons of things that should have been thrown out or donated.
I have no trouble tossing this stuff. If my siblings want it, they better hurry over to get it because a new pile is going into the trash every day.
This thread has inspired me to dig into all the things in my basement that I really don’t need to keep. I have made a small dent, but I suspect that I will revisit things that I kept & eventually get rid of a lot of that. I don’t know why I find it so hard to get rid of things I haven’t even thought about in years. But I truly thank my parents for getting rid of so much before they died … it made our job of cleaning out their far-away home so much easier. It was awful helping my in laws get rid of things when they moved to assisted living three years ago, but It will make things much easier when MIL eventually passes.
…and crystal/cut glass. Nobody wants them. Also costume jewelry. Nobody wants it. Also, STOP LOCKING THINGS we broke into 3 different trunks today and have ametal lockbox we couldn’t open.
…crammed/stuck in the bottom drawer of a non descript end table thank goodness wasn’t tossed yet : an envelope with $150 of POD savings bonds, and then an envelope of $7200 of POD savings bonds
…in the bottom of pile #100 of miscellaneous papers, a folder with all correspondance related to my DiL’s international adoption. Not forms, letters – how is the baby doing? Do we know why they left her? We are buying baby clothes this size, how much has she grown? kind of stuff . She and I had a bit of a cry over those.
I am gonna be watching this thread, so glad I found it. Dad has cancer and moves in with us (from Washington to PA) in a week. I would never have known to check out residency benefits/disadvantages and that these could be gamed, in a sense.
Dad has a ton of property. I’m the executor. I am dreading this already. There are four heirs, each to get 25%. Except one of the heirs currently is his partner, and they’re essentially splitting up. Not sure if he’s gonna change the will; obv a conversation to be had. Among many.
A couple years ago I went to the bank with my mother. We said that she wanted me as co-signer and POD on all her accounts. when my father died there was one account that my mother wasn’t on and it almost caused a problem but we just directed those funds (I think it was a savings account with not much in it) to pay the credit card and they were able to close all the accounts.
Last Thursday I went into the bank to freeze my mother’s account while we settle out some things. Oh, I’m not on her credit card account so I can’t freeze it. Okay, do it your way, but she’s not responsible for any charges after her date of death.
What part of ALL accounts did they not understand?
credit cards do not have beneficiaries so when you mentioned PoD, perhaps the person was confused.
call the 800 number on the back of the credit card and notify them of the date of death. They have Reps to handle such things on the phone with no problem. (They certainly don’t want any new charges, so they’ll put a hold on the card, and may request a copy of the death cert to close it.)
They knew what we wanted. I could be a co-signer on the credit card. We even told them why were were concerned, because they’d missed one account of my father’s.
We wont have the death certificates for a couple of weeks. I’m only concerned about a few recurring charges, but as I told them, those charges won’t be authorized as they’ve now been notified. When I was in the bank (really a CU) on Thursday, there were a lot of people having trouble with credit cards, debt cards, making deposits because there was ‘something wrong with the system.’
@greenbutton actually, if you have time…costume jewelry does sell at thrift stores and places like goodwill. But the fake Crystal…and silverplate. No. And good china…no. And old wine glasses…no.
Re: the locked boxes…if someone locks then their executor should somehow be told where the key is hidden. We had the same issue…and some of the trunks we opened would have been nice…except for the now broken locks. Plus…frankly, there was nothing in them worthy of locking up!
Like you, we had to search every single item and place. In one case, we found a beautiful Diamond pendant that we didn’t even know the person owned. In the second case, we found thousands of dollars in cash and some active stock certificate buried with piles of papers. God knows what we might have missed in both cases.
yes, exactly about the trunks-- they were destroyed in the opening and then most of the stuff was worthless. A cedar chest was maimed on the insistence of the executor, who believed really valuable things were locked in it and it turned out to be moldy bedspreads.
And storing things in plastic bags is not the safety people imagine. After 30-40 years of unbreathable isolation, items degrade.
another word to the wise – home movies, slides-- the emulsion degrades and corrodes over time no matter what. If you have precious images,have them digitized or physically printed.
We will probably sell the costume jewelry as a lot. My worry is inadvertantly giving away something with real value, but we can’t afford to have a pile of junk assessed just to hope there is a diamon or actual pearl.
We have a local jeweler in my small town that looked at a number of pieces my MIL had. He was able to quickly look them over and tell me which had any value - ie real gold, real stones, etc. My daughter is involved in theater and she was able use the costume stuff as “costumes”. We still have the good pieces trying to decide what to do with them.
The jeweler didn’t charge me anything for this initial read though I did mention I would come to him first if we decide to sell any of it. Maybe there is someone locally that would be willing to do this. (I made sure to go at a quiet time so I wasn’t taking time away from paying customers).
A local theater company took some of my family member’s “vintage” clothing - we only brought them “good” stuff in good shape but they were happy to take it.
My folks were volunteers in a local senior center so we called them first to see what type of donations they would be interested in; they only accepted clothing, but we thought it a good way to honor the folks (by donating to their charity).
You could have some of the jewelry remade. The amount you would receive on trade-in is not as high as the stone would cost if you were to purchase new, so you could have stones removed from one piece and either made up as earrings or as pendant.
While charm bracelets have been enjoying renewed interest, I find it too clunky to wear, but once the charms are removed, a beautiful bracelet is available. A jump ring can be attached to each charm to wear on a chain.
You could sell some of the pieces to pay for the labor & materials fees to have new pieces made up.
I’d check on that with an estate attorney. Transfers to trusts for estate purposes will have tax consequences. For example, if you transfer your home to a trust for estate planning so it’s no longer in your estate for tax purposes, the heirs don’t receive the benefit of stepped up basis.
If you’re referring to whether you can claim the exemption during your lifetime if you sell the property, it probably depends on the type of trust and state law.
Thanks for the ideas.
I actually have a gold charm bracelet that I wear often and a couple of the pieces could work on it with a little retooling. I have a wedding coming coming up and a 1960’s classic cocktail ring does perfectly with it. I initially planned on having the stones taken out of the ring but now I plan on wearing it.
When I brought some of my mom’s jewelry to a jeweler for informal review, I was surprised to hear that many of the charms (24 karat?) could have value. For now I keep but don’t wear.