I know I am staring down the barrel of a gun right now. Dad is 88 and has procrastinated til the bitter end. He is in bad health and my husband and I do most of his shopping and all of the driving to his many appointments. He lives alone and it's usually a dirty mess over there. He refuses household help. More to the point: He has no will. He owns no property but has several accounts. I am his POA. There is substantial money which he probably wants to go to my sister since he is partially supporting her in another city. This is fine with me, but she is not named as a beneficiary on anything despite discussion by me about this. Our mom passed away 13 years ago, and she is still named as beneficiary on some things. On some accounts there is NO beneficiary. Dad pays all his own bills and says he intends to work on all this, also once upon a time made an appointment with an attorney to talk about a will, then cancelled it. For one account, I copied a beneficiary form and placed it in front of him. No go. He is still procrastinating on it 7 months later. I feel like I can't nudge him any more. I love him and we are still buddies, but I am just fed up. So, bottom line, how can I prepare myself for the financial fallout of his death? I just want to shield myself now. Enough is enough.
If you have, perhaps there's something to be said for just letting it happen. Are you in California or am I reading too much into your screen name?! There are many websites explaining intestacy procedure, and at least one benefit of that is you just go with the flow. Are you expecting your sister to cut up rough?
It must really niggle at you though - what's he so afraid of? What is it that puts him off getting it done? Is he scared of tempting Fate or something?
My father is the same, but he does not trust me at all and refuses to allow me to assist him with any financial tasks - I'm not even allowed to go in the bank with him when I drive him there.
His recently 'preparation' has been to remove me off my mother's bank account and to show her how to write a cheque. An 85 year old woman with dementia who has never written a cheque in her life.
The only wee thing that helped is that he mostly trusts my daughter and he sort of allows her to help him with financial things and she is now at least added onto their joint account (but he threatens to take her off sometimes too).
Is there a friend or family member you could recruit to encourage/help your father tackle the task of getting his finances in order?
In my case it's my husband, who procrastinates, or avoids any attention to his estate. We have 2 wills, as the finance manager for my MIL's estate objected to my lawyer DIL having drawn up the first wills. We once had a fortune, which is gone. We live hand to mouth now. But my husband handles all the money. I get to buy the food, and spend anything on the dog, but other than that, I am to "Be careful", implying we are at zero balance. Last year we ended up with a credit counseling agency when I learned we had 2 liens on our house, and we were overdrawn at the bank, with nothing coming in for 2 weeks. Cars were needing gas. Multiply bills due. Etc.
He promised then he would be mindful of his spending, and always inform me, keeping me up to date on our financial state. He took a job and works at least 2 days, more often 3, every week. This helps some. But he refuses to update the wills, tell me where the life insurance information is, how much income tax we owe, etc. He has some signs of early dementia, so I am very concerned.
How will I fare if he does die before I do? Will the second will over ride the first? In the second will, a big sum is left to his only child, who he only learned of when he was 50 yrs old, and the son 30. They have a very tenuous relationship, and presently, there is nothing to leave the son, except the house we are living in.
My husband will not answer or respond to my asking him what he would like me to do with the material he has accumulated for a book he's writing, (but has stopped now for almost a year).
Help. !! Thank you, everyone on this website/blog.
Yes, I'm in California. I attempted to go back and edit my post to say this, but I guess I didn't "save" properly or something!
I expect nothing problematic from my sister. She's happy to have left me in charge, as she is in delicate physical and emotional health and really cannot handle decision making or anything. It's just that she needs some cash for survival, so I don't want her to have to wait 2 years or however long probate takes.
I don't know what he's afraid of!! He's been a terrible procrastinator as long as I can remember. I forced myself to gently bring up the issue of wills and beneficiaries, and he seemed to welcome that discussion, but now NOTHING.
And now a new thing: He welcomed our offer to "help him" clean out storage units at his apartment building, but now that we are hauling things out to show him what there is, guess what..... NO. No. No. So I guess we're putting most of it back.
Thanks so much for answering!
Elders can be stubborn, too. They want to cling on every bit of independence they can, thus will refuse others to help.
As for your Dad's finances, chances are most of what he had saved will go for around the clock care. And that can empty out a savings account rather quickly.
Your Dad probably doesn't realize that his estate may go into Probate Court if he has no Will, and depending on the net worth of his estate. The Probate Judge will decide who gets what. If there is you and one sister, then the Judge could split the estate in half.
If later down the road your Dad needs a village to help take care of him [nursing home and Medicaid help], the money he has been giving to your sister will complicate matters. I realize we never think about this or even know about this when giving money to grown children.
Another thing that happens, and my parents did that to me, our elder parents forget that we are grown adults, maybe even seniors ourselves, and what do we know as the parent still view us a kid :P
It is desirable for us all to have a will, but if someone doesn't, this doesn't mean that the state takes the assets, or penalizes the estate in any way, or disposes of assets in some arbitrary way.
Tell Dad if he doesn't set up a Will and change his beneficiaries, the state will get involved with who inherits and the state may take their share. I may not be completely right but it may work.
With u on the accounts you get the money when he passes. He really needs to get Mom off his insurances. It may take a court to determine who is next of kin for insurance. It did with my nephew when my sister never picked a beneficiary. A Will will make his estate go more smoothly. Otherwise, the state gets involved.
But he is content to be your sister's financial mainstay, yes? I expect he and you are both sorry that your sister needs this help, as in sorry that she's not in better shape and able to do without it; but he doesn't resent subbing her and you've no objection either?
So maybe that's the thread to pull on - telling him that you're worried that if he doesn't make specific provision for his daughter, that daughter is going to be in hot water for between six months and two years because nobody will be able to advance her any cash; and even if he can't face the rest of it could he please deal with that?
He needs to make the legal appointments and all his own decisions. He needs to get himself to the appointments.
Any will could be easily overturned if you are Involved in any way.
Take this seriously. It is better to get nothing than to be in a position where you are defending yourself in court.
Legal battles could easily cost you more than his assets and the insurance money put together.
or you go alone and get the lawyer to record him or herself into the voice recorder on your phone to explain what dying without a will does. Then play it for your father. He will have to name an executor on his will if he does have one drawn up...make sure you really want to be the one before you say yes. Or you can let the court appoint one.
Does your dad even say he is willing to do a will but just won't move off the dime, or does he not want to do one?
You cannot do anything, Sweetie, Sorry to say. Be this POA, Do what you can to Help, Knowing when the Smoke clears One day, You were the Angel with Wings and Things...
You will need to file an application with your father's county probate court, requesting to be appointed administrator of your father's estate (and your sister may need to submit a sworn statement saying she is not opposed). If your father's assets will be complicated in terms of taxes or investments or trusts, you may need an estate lawyer, but very often you can handle this yourself if you're willing to invest the time. (Probate court staff are usually very helpful, too.) Try to relax about all this. Unless your father has unknown children out there, this might be much more straightford than you now think. Good luck (when the time comes--we're not trying to rush things!)
I asked variations of the "5 questions" to ask him what he wanted, what he was thinking about and what it would take for him to decide to move. I had this discussion when I was not aggravated by something he was not doing to suit me so that I could be patient and listen to his answers instead of telling him what to do. In our case, he knew he needed to move but he could not figure out how to start the process; he did not know how to do the first step and the idea of any of it was so overwhelming that he just refused to change anything. I think I was partly lucky, and partly just got him at the right moment. But also I think this book got me in the right frame of mind to talk to him and take a different approach by asking him about how he saw the future while did lead to a breakthrough,
The story of elderly people who refuse care, refuse to cooperate with efforts to assist them, refuse to allow family to assist with finances but cannot manage themselves is common everywhere there are elderly people. I think that they are afraid that if they give up one thing, it will start a slippery slope to loss of complete control and it often does because once they give up something, people find out what a mess it all truly is. But we don't really ask them what they want, and how the future might look to them. Sadly we cannot cheat death by procrastination and delaying these decisions increase the likelihood of that death being more terrible than necessary as well as leaving a mess for the survivors. So if what we are doing with them is not working, a different approach is worth a try.
Here are the questions.
Atul Gawande’s 5 Questions to Ask at Life’s End – Next Avenue
"We need to know: 1. What is your understanding of where you are and of your illness? 2. Your fears or worries for the future 3. Your goals and priorities 4. What outcomes are unacceptable to you? What are you willing to sacrifice and not? And later, 5. What would a good day look like? Asking these allows everybody to understand what the goal really is — what are you really fighting for? It’s for a life that contains certain things."
This might be the button to push. Dad, sissy needs you to be responsible and set up a trust or will that only pays her xx amount monthly. I won't be able to help her financially and I know you don't want to see her ?be homeless? not eating? No meds? Whatever pushes him?, so let's do this.
She was talking about how she'd just pass and she trusted her 3 kids to calmly disperse of her worldy goods, She just didn't want a fuss.
Teeth grinding--because that's NOT what would happen.
Finally, I flat out told her that the STATE would step in, appoint an attorney to go through ALL HER THINGS (yes, including her underwear drawer) and would assess the values of things and AFTER he'd given the state their chunk--only then would the family receive anything. (Yes, I know that's not the exact way it would go, but it would be a nightmare).
Being a DIL and not in a position to receive anything (she has made it known that I am not to be able to 'benefit' in any way from her demise--why would I even care?
She spent an hour with an attorney and was told pretty much exactly what I told her. She now has a will--but this could easily have gone the other way.
DH is her executor and he is livid. Doesn't even speak to her, but, dang it, he's gonna be in it up to his armpits.
She was angry, b/c it did cost her like $2K to have the will drawn up, but it's better knowing a stranger won't be pawing through her 'delicates'.
Go through things at his home and search for documents that may need beneficiaries. It will be a nightmare if everything has to go to probate. Ask him does he want the court system to get part of what he saved for years when he can do something so easy to take care of that. Start now!
This post and many of the answers are completely disturbing and shocking.
Please see a lawyer and do not rely upon the laymans’ “legal” advice on this thread. You could wind up with criminal and civil liability.
If you get bad advice from a lawyer that is one thing, but it is no defense to say a bunch of strangers on a thread suggested you do something illegal and you took their advice.
No amount of money or stuff is worth going to jail.