Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Retirement
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
 
Old 11-22-2018, 10:25 PM
 
Location: TN/NC
34,944 posts, read 31,079,407 times
Reputation: 47329

Advertisements

I'd never plan on it.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 11-22-2018, 10:48 PM
 
535 posts, read 342,580 times
Reputation: 1713
Quote:
Originally Posted by srjth View Post
I know a couple of single people in their mid-40’s who have accumulated no assets and their retirement plan is to wait until their parents die and leaves them their assets/inheritance.

Have you ever heard of this or seen this?
I think that they are idiots to do so. My mother lived until she was 92. She took loans against most of her properties and traveled the world with her kids and grandkids. She also took a few trips with her good friends. She helped some grandchildren with their tuition. She refurbished her rentals. She was a SAHM with real estate as one of her many interests. My dad was a large appliance repairperson for Sears. He drove a truck to people's homes and repaired their washing machines, TV sets, and refrigerators. He died at the age of 67.

At any rate, a couple of her sons tried to steal her "blind," so she removed them as trustees and put the daughters in charge of her health care and her assets. When the doctor told me that she was going to die soon because of pneumonia, kidney cancer, and multi-system organ failure, he asked me what he should do with her as far as end-of -life plans. I told him to wait one second......"Mom what do you want...this is what is happening to you....the doctors want to know...." She sat up and got in their faces: "I WANT TO LIVE!!!!"

LOL. I told them: "You heard the lady, and BTW, I'll have what she's having."

She ended up falling into a coma a couple of weeks later, but she did it her way.

Anyway, the brothers and one mentally ill sister decided to fight her WILL in court and it took a total of 16 lawyers, 3 paralegals, 2 accountants, two real estate agents, four escrow specialists and a real estate management company to sort it all out.

She started off leaving a lot of money, but it soon dwindled into much less.

I say "Don't count on anything from your parents."
Count on yourself.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-22-2018, 10:50 PM
 
Location: Texas
13,480 posts, read 8,334,679 times
Reputation: 25947
Quote:
Originally Posted by srjth View Post
I know a couple of single people in their mid-40’s who have accumulated no assets and their retirement plan is to wait until their parents die and leaves them their assets/inheritance.

Have you ever heard of this or seen this?
If their parents need long term care, most of their money will have to go towards that. So there would be little or nothing left to inherit. So if one, or both parents go into a nursing home, that will suck all their money dry. Nursing homes cost 100K a year or more.

Waiting on inheritance is not a very wise or sound plan.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-22-2018, 10:58 PM
 
535 posts, read 342,580 times
Reputation: 1713
Quote:
Originally Posted by Over the hill gang View Post
My half sister was in charge of our mother, power of attorney and executor because she lived in the same city, I'm 1000 miles away. That was supposed to be my job but with the distance....
We were to split everything including 2 life insurance policies but somehow in my mothers last year of Alzheimer's I was no longer included. I accepted that my half sister stole my share because I refuse to fight over money but I had a harder time accepting that she had her cremated instead of her last wishes, to be buried beside my father. She later sold the plot next to my father. At the time I couldn't get home to fight this because my husband was fighting cancer and was in kidney failure due to his treatments.

My half sister had never saved anything, no 401K....nothing. She told me numerous times when she got her share she was going to quit work. Sadly greed took over. As soon as she got her hands on the life insurance and everything else she retired. I'm not the least bit shocked, it's who she is.
I may not have what my mother intended but at least I can sleep with a clear conscience.
My sister and I did just the opposite. We fought our greedy, thieving three brothers and one sister and got the money to a conservator lawyer. Froze everything. It has been two years, and the lawyers have made a bundle, especially the ones that my greedy siblings hired. We were scared in the beginning, but good thing we listened to my mother's long time lawyer. If not, we would have gotten NOTHING. Sometimes, if it is a sizable amount of money, it is worth it to take a chance and fight it a bit. I admit some cases are just not worth fighting over. At $350.00-$700.00+ an hour for lawyers, it is not worth it at times. The lawyer and court cost money goes quickly.

I decided that if I was going to get nothing, so would they.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-23-2018, 12:31 PM
 
2,759 posts, read 2,034,289 times
Reputation: 5005
The only thing I inherited from my parents was their small 1940s house that had never been expanded or updated and so when they died in the early 1990s it had minimal resale value. I didn't want to move back to the old neighborhood and so I sold it and used it to aquire a house of my own elsewhere. So my intention was never to use the inheritance/sale proceeds for retirement. It was the only way I could afford to own my own home in my own name without a mortgage.

My son got cheated of an expected inheritance though. Long story short, his father was the older (and favorite) of two sons; FIL had been a stockbroker before a late-fifties career change to a government job, so obviously there was a pretty good expectation there of investments plus the in-law's house, boat, and whatever bank accounts and pensions etc. My then-husband was also a lawyer and so had drawn up his parents wills which we knew divided the assets equally between the two sons (MIL having predeceased.) The normal format is that if one of the heirs predeceases the will-maker, that heir's inheritance shifts to his/her offspring.

In the late 1980s my son's father estranged himself from his FIL and other family members and forbid either me or our son to have any contact with them. It turned out that my son's father died before his own father (FIL) did, and I overheard FIL say shortly afterward that he would need to amend his will. My son and I assumed that the revision would be to divide his eventual estate between his remaining son, and my son (only child of the son who died.) Since the estrangement was entirely the doing of the son who was now dead, there couldn't possibly be any blame attached to a grandson who was still only about 12 years old at that point. Right? And my son established a normal relationship with his paternal grandfather after that.

Well, time went by and eventually FIL died and my son and I had been assuming that 50% of his estate would be coming my son's way. Certainly nothing was said to indicate it wouldn't. So it was a shock to find out that the will revision had given EVERYTHING to the surviving son ... with the stipulation that if the surviving son should die first, everything would go to the surviving son's two children! My son was only given the same amount that was earmarked for FIL's current girlfriend's grandchildren: $2000. The total value of the estate that went to my ex-BIL was about $700,000 when all was said and done.

To add insult to injury my son was asked to sign an affidavit stating that he would not make any claims against the estate other than the $2000 that was given to him in the will. Having worked in a law office myself, I knew that technically he had no grounds to contest it: The new will said, as is usual, that it superceded any prior wills that were made. Of course we were wrong to have assumed that the new will had been made in what most people would consider a "fair and equitable" manner but there's no law that says a will has to be drawn up in that way. I was absolutely furious on DS's behalf but because DS was in his twenties by then I let him decide how to handle it and he felt it wasn't worth alienating his only other relatives in a losing effort. But I will always feel that somehow my son was being "punished" for the unreasonable actions of his father.

For my part, I keep my son abreast of what the financial situation has been re: his own inheritance. He knows that all the investments I once had were wiped out by the Recession + uninsured cancer treatment, and that there's likely to be little or no money left in the bank or my IRA when I die. He will inherit my house free and clear, unless I am forced to take out a reverse mortgage someday but we will discuss that if/when that arises. No surprises for him this time, lol
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-23-2018, 03:46 PM
 
1,558 posts, read 2,391,408 times
Reputation: 2601
I don't know if it's a family thing but it was very important to my in-laws that they leave an estate to their kids. MIL is still alive but not well. She refuses to go to an assisted living facility because she doesn't want to spend her kid's inheritance. Any estate she leaves will be split three ways between three kids but since the one daughter has spent so many hours taking care of her, the two brothers will give a chunk of theirs to her for all she has done. Of course this is all dependent on when/if MIL leaves the planet anytime soon. So no, not counting on any inheritance as a retirement plan.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-23-2018, 09:43 PM
 
Location: Los Angeles
4,488 posts, read 3,909,512 times
Reputation: 14536
Quote:
Originally Posted by srjth View Post
I know a couple of single people in their mid-40’s who have accumulated no assets and their retirement plan is to wait until their parents die and leaves them their assets/inheritance.

Have you ever heard of this or seen this?
This is why I never go down the stairs in front of my son.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-23-2018, 11:27 PM
 
Location: NNV
3,433 posts, read 3,720,534 times
Reputation: 6733
Quote:
Originally Posted by srjth View Post
I know a couple of single people in their mid-40’s who have accumulated no assets and their retirement plan is to wait until their parents die and leaves them their assets/inheritance.

Have you ever heard of this or seen this?
That's not called a retirement plan. That's called a "bailout".
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-24-2018, 04:13 AM
 
Location: Texas of course
705 posts, read 560,413 times
Reputation: 3832
Quote:
Originally Posted by suziq38 View Post
My sister and I did just the opposite. We fought our greedy, thieving three brothers and one sister and got the money to a conservator lawyer. Froze everything. It has been two years, and the lawyers have made a bundle, especially the ones that my greedy siblings hired. We were scared in the beginning, but good thing we listened to my mother's long time lawyer. If not, we would have gotten NOTHING. Sometimes, if it is a sizable amount of money, it is worth it to take a chance and fight it a bit. I admit some cases are just not worth fighting over. At $350.00-$700.00+ an hour for lawyers, it is not worth it at times. The lawyer and court cost money goes quickly.

I decided that if I was going to get nothing, so would they.
The reason I didn't fight was mostly because of a promise I made. My dad was executor of his father's estate. The ONLY time I saw my father cry was when he was handling that estate. I saw a few of his siblings become different people and it wasn't pretty. My father died of a massive heart attack just before the estate was settled, a Lawyer took over. I blame the stress for his death. He had to put up with so much. I promised I would never become like them and I didn't. Did I get angry, of course, I wouldn't be human if it didn't bother me but I was more hurt than angry. I'm most angry about the fact that my mothers final wish to be buried next to my father was not carried out. The weird thing is, I'm not surprised she did it. Greed is an ugly human trait.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-27-2018, 02:55 PM
 
3,409 posts, read 4,872,807 times
Reputation: 4249
One of my sisters got an "advance" on her inheritance because she was about to lose her house, which had some of my mother's property as collateral, and she wanted to sell that land. She sold the property and gave my sister her early inheritance so she could in turn give it to the bank on her mortgage so they'd release the land. Once mom died, last summer, I was quite surprised she didn't give me any hassle when I settled the estate. Since then though, one of her daughters told me that she told her and her sisters how there was a "secret" will that mom had signed after the original one, which gave her more money. I supposedly am hiding said will.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Retirement
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 04:55 PM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top