<p>My parents’ rationale was that my brother would one day have to support a family and presumably I’d have a husband who could support me. GAK.</p>
<p>HIMom – am working on how to approach my folks about the changes they need to make. Sigh. When they told me they wanted me to be the executor, they hadn’t even seen the lawyer yet. When I got there over winter break, they were done and signed. The atty goes to my parents’ church and that seems to be sufficient qualification in my dad’s book. Not in mine.</p>
<p>People are not always very rational about the choices they make, especially when it comes to friends, professionals and money. It still is pretty harsh to feel abandoned by your folks and treated so poorly compared with your brother. That happened a lot in our parents’ generation but around here, not so much in ours. Our folks allowed all of us to get both undergrad & grad/professional degrees & reimbursed us for any loans we graduated with.</p>
<p>Is there anyone your folks trust that are is outside the family? Perhaps if THEY told your folks how important it is for the legal documents to accurately reflect their wishes, that would make things better.</p>
<p>In particular, they CAN transfer title to the D NOW, if that’s what they want to do. It would give her more protection than if they wait until they need medicaid or die. Your hubby knows all of this, I’m sure and it must be so difficult for you! There is a 5-year lookback generally as of the time people apply for/need MedicAid. Attorneys who specialize in working with elders keep current on this stuff and are very good at explaining the details AND do more than copy forms off the internet. <sigh></sigh></p>
<p>The attorney who did my FIL’s estate plan was disciplined & I believe disbarred. I had no say in his selection & there is still stuff dangling around 20+ years after MIL’s death and 15+ after FIL’s death. I stay out of it because I am not “blood.”</p>
<p>I am very cheap. The one area I think it pays to go top drawer is legal advice. Someone who works for me inherited a parents IRA and 401K and thanks to bad advice from the lawyer did not take the distributions in the most tax advantaged way. Cost a boat- load in unnecessary taxes, plus a hefty penalty, plus brokerage fees for some dubious transactions. I know people-- smart, educated, successful people- who don’t title their houses or accounts correctly, and don’t fill out the beneficiary forms correctly on their insurance or retirement accounts.</p>
<p>Most of this stuff cannot be corrected retroactively (i.e. once you are dead.) Most people figure out that if they leave enough money, their kids or spouse can afford to get legal advice after the fact. </p>
<p>I am not a lawyer. But setting up your estate plan seems to be one of the few times where it pays to go first class (i.e. competent and not el-cheapo which is my default setting!)</p>
<p>My wonderful in laws gave each of our 4 children at birth a generous check to start their college funds .In our very Jewish family ,there was never a doubt that the kids would go to college ! Curious if this generosity is a Jewish thing . Anyone have Jewish in-laws who could afford to be generous ,and didn’t give money ?</p>
<p>Generosity with respect to educational expenses isn’t an exclusively Jewish thing, but my observation is that it is a Jewish thing. It’s a cultural norm–not everybody in the culture will do it, of course.</p>
<p>in that case–to my experience–it’s a black thing too.</p>
<p>but i wouldn’t go so far as to ever characterize ‘generosity’ (a trait that many people share–transcending race/religion/class) as a cultural norm. there are generous and stingy people all over the place. no one culture has a lock on generosity. this should be obvious…</p>
<p>I think “generosity” is the wrong word here–I think there are differing cultural norms as to the responsibilities to extended family. It may be more of an immigrant thing than a specific Jewish thing.</p>
<p>There were comments on here to the effect of “ask . . . but be prepared not to hold a grudge if the answer is no”. A corollary to that would be “ask . . . and be prepared to be resented for having asked, even if the answer is no”.</p>
<p>Customs and expectations vary so widely, as these posts show. But because the two partners can come from varying traditions, I think it’s first most important that between husband and wife, each person’s sense of their own family of origin’s limits should be respected. No anger at H or W because H or W does not feel entitled to ask his or her parents. County college figures prominently in our planning, and it would be nice if the financial pot were larger, but it has not occurred to us that it would be OK to ask grandparents for money. It has absolutely occurred to us that it is OK to ask the kids to start at County. Our kids comprise most of the grandchildren on both sides, and the grandparents on both sides live more luxuriously than we do (or than we expect to). But we have everything we need – much more than we need, really, and so do our kids. My parents, by contrast, educated me while helping with their own parents, who were not so flush, so I feel privileged just that the grandparents are so self-sufficient and I don’t have to worry about the grandparental finances.</p>