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Ok. For those late to the party, I will lay it out how I see it & please forgive me Kathryn if I have this wrong. I realize I am projecting & I am angry for KA. It seems she has been the designated servant.
The fact is there is no changing her mom's will. Her cheese has slipped off her cracker enough that it would not be difficult to prove she is not of sound mind. And frankly it may all need be sold at some point anyway to pay for her keep. She is a woman in good health.
KA could ask her mother right now to be given the property she was told was hers. Actually KA could do transfer it herslf with the POA. Even if her mother did this or she brazenly did, her brother(s) could rightfully throw a fit & take it to a judge....KA would likely lose. And I am pretty certain her mother would do the "your Father set this up & I am following his wishes" thing anyway.
You need realize these parents are/were not straight shooters.
If they were, KA could take the copy of the will to her mothet & say what the h*ll is this bullsh*t?! And it would be, "oh my gosh, that's not what we intended, I want this fixed ASAP". Then all concerned would agree a serious error needs corrected. But sadly that is not usually the case in families with dysfunction.
The only way I can see is to have a representative buy it & KA hide behind anonymity. Then slice off & sell what is not needed/or what needs be sold to pay for the rest. Sometimes it is not do-able to subdivide & sell and come out ahead or break even. It can be a good way to lose your ass.
The total purchase cost may also be more money than KA wants to spend OR the whole flipping thing is now so tainted she can not bear going anywhere near it.
All in all it is a sucky deal. Her father (or mother if she predeceased) could have darn well deeded KA in his will exactly what was repeatedly promised.
Very well put post. I don't think Kathryn has misunderstood what her parents told her for years, nor do I think she misunderstands what the wills say. Her parents deliberately and willfully misled her for years. It might be hard for some to imagine that any parent would treat a child this way but it happens and probably more often than we know.
It's not so easy to "rewrite wills." In fact, it's very difficult. Not only that, both parents have in their wills that if anyone disputes any part of it, they're out.
Please believe that this was not a simple mix up. I have absolutely every bit of evidence that proves it's not and no evidence that proves it IS a "simple mix up." It is not a simple mix up.
Each of the three portions of this land has a distinct name attached to it, and every family member is aware of those names. The section I THOUGHT I was inheriting has a very specific name, and so does the section that I actually "ended up inheriting." Both wills use this very specific name as well as a legal description. However, when I first saw this very specific name I thought, "No, surely not just that - surely the legal description lists both those tracts." Actually my parents told me for the past five or six years that I'd inherit ALL the land since one brother couldn't inherit any land and the other was uninterested in it. So I saw the specific name the family uses but just thought "That legal description must mean all of it."
But the codicil goes into more detail, making it very clear that the paragraph in the will limits what I would inherit to this one much smaller and much more problematic tract of land. And it is not the tract of land that my parents kept saying my husband and I should just go ahead and build on. GRRRRR! That would have been a TERRIBLE investment on our part - we would have owned a house right smack dab in the middle of land we jointly inherited with my two brothers - one of which couldn't even really own it so I have no idea how that would have played out but I am pretty sure my husband and I would have come out on the losing end of that gnarly deal.
The land that was eventually actually left to me is land that my father alone inherited. He and my mother bought the rest of the land SURROUNDING that land together. That's why I say that this has my mother's fingerprints all over it. I can hear her to my dad now: "Well, you can do whatever you want with YOUR land but I'll be damned if I'm going to just give Kathryn any land we bought together. That needs to go to everyone. No way am I going to shortchange my darling youngest son even though he can't actually own any of that land. Nope, I guess they will just have to sell it and give him his portion of the proceeds." Or whatever. IT MAKES NO SENSE.
Except it DOES make sense - in my family setting with my whacked family dynamics. Remember, I had a very enabling dad and I have a mentally disturbed mother who has an unhealthy, enabling relationship with my youngest brother - who is absolutely ZERO help to either her or me and has always, always been a leech. Doesn't every family have one of these? I think most do - but most don't have actual, bona fide mental illness to contend with as well - or an otherwise perfectly rational, otherwise sharp dad who , when given the choice of either standing up to his mentally ill wife or throwing his mentally stable daughter under the bus would throw his daughter under the bus EVERY TIME.
This is just "Under The Bus Throw" #4,328 or whatever. And that's why I always had a nagging doubt in the pit of my stomach and what was keeping me awake every night. And that's why I am more relieved now, because I'm no longer waiting for the other shoe to drop. It has done dropped and now I know what my moral obligations are - and are not.
It seems so many parents believe the most incompetent, the most messed up, child should get the most money because they 'need it' more than the other competent, successful, children. They penalize those who stayed in school and worked hard their whole lives to give their money to the kids who dropped out of school, and/or are addicts and could never keep a job. They reward the screw ups in death just as they did in life.
I am not going to walk away from all of it though, not at this point. I do feel I have a moral obligation to be sure my mother is kept safe and as well as possible.
However, I do not have a moral obligation, as I see it, to "go the extra mile." I certainly don't have any need to try to prove my devotion and my sense of obligation to anyone involved. And THAT is where the relief comes in.
See, since my dad died, though he didn't make me the executor of his estate, he did leave my mother in my care and he and my mom both made sure that all legal documents to shoulder me with this responsibility were in place before either parent was incapacitated or passed away. In fact, I am the only person who can really "take care of business" at this point.
The plan is to sell all the land and put the money into my mom's accounts. I am going to see if she and my brothers are willing to sign a family settlement agreement that deeds the proceeds from the one portion of that land to me. I am going tell my mom that I expect her to sign that and that I also expect her to persuade my younger brother to sign it as well. I am not worried about my older brother signing it - not at this point, anyway.
I will base future decisions on my level of involvement on the level of cooperation I get on this matter.
And also, since I already know now that both my parents intentionally deceived me for years, I am actually relieved that I just know it for sure and that nothing is hanging over my head and that I'm not waking up in the middle of the night now with this exact phrase running through my head: "I am going to get screwed in this whole ordeal."
I already HAVE been screwed but that's in the past now. But now that I know the facts, I don't have to continue to get screwed and there is great freedom and even relief in knowing that.
See - my mom is crazy in some ways, but she is NOT "crazy all the way." It's not like she's completely mentally gone. It's more like she's so jacked up emotionally, and then had that stroke and then surgery and all that, that her thought processes are whacked. It's like her reasoning ability when it comes to emotional issues (or things like dates and times - I chalk that up to some mental deterioration) just falls down a rabbit hole. SHE HAS NEVER BEEN LOGICAL OR FAIR WHEN IT COMES TO ME.
I have to think of things from that perspective because it's the sad reality. It would be nice to assume that my mother has my best interests and fairness and all that sweetness and light in mind when it comes to me, but that is simply not the case. Never has been and still isn't and I am not holding my breath to watch it come to pass.
Is your mother the executor of you father's Will or someone else?
It seems so many parents believe the most incompetent, the most messed up, child should get the most money because they 'need it' more than the other competent, successful, children. They penalize those who stayed in school and worked hard their whole lives to give their money to the kids who dropped out of school, and/or are addicts and could never keep a job. They reward the screw ups in death just as they did in life.
Will you be your mother's executor? My parents had wills naming each other as executor but included me as the back-up (which means I'll be executor of my mom's will since my dad died first - if I don't decide to let the state do it [sibling problems]).
Will you be your mother's executor? My parents had wills naming each other as executor but included me as the back-up (which means I'll be executor of my mom's will since my dad died first - if I don't decide to let the state do it [sibling problems]).
Thankfully my dad's will is very straightforward - my mom gets everything (kids are named as backup heirs - this is mirrored in my mom's will). I have a friend who is an attorney and he agreed to a very low price to just basically pull it all together and have her sign stuff putting things in her name.
I've already gotten the bank accounts and financial stuff lined out for her in her name with my dad's name off of them, so it's basically just property.
She has no idea that I got the surprise of my life regarding the wills and property - I haven't said a word to either brother either. I talked to her Monday. As I said, she didn't let me in on her performance at "Happy Hour" (the program she does nothing but complain about - "It's so stupid, I never go, yada yada yada"), which was Tuesday.
After not hearing from her for days (I knew she was alive because one of my brothers had talked with her), I called the facility to be sure she was ok and they said yes, she was fine. This was yesterday. When I talked with her Monday, she was planning for us to go to estate and garage sales today. So I tried to call her twice yesterday evening - no answer.
Not that I care - I don't WANT to take her to estate sales or anywhere else today! The only reason I tried to call her last night was because I felt obligated since I'd already committed to going. I knew already she was safe and had all her actual needs met (took care of all that Sunday).
When my brother talked with her last night, she told him how helpful I am to her. Hm.
Anyway, haven't heard a word. Normally we would have talked several times and seen each other at least twice this week.
I'm liking the freedom but I do have to wonder what's up with her. She's a bit of a loose cannon.
Last edited by KathrynAragon; 03-04-2017 at 07:25 AM..
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