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.
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?
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.
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.
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!
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.
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?
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?