Thursday, July 10, 2008
A note on the previous post - Jay was clean on everything tested, all the hepatitis variations, all the STDs, everything. The only surprise was that he had only one kidney, and a dried-up walnut where the other one should have been.
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The sisters are dividing up the late father-in-law's estate. One sister wanted to sell all the stock and distribute the cash. One sister wanted to distribute the shares, because the market is in the toilet. I don't know what the third sister wanted, but they decided to distribute shares.
There's really no difference, even if the market is so bad, because although it's a bad time to sell, it's also a good time to buy, so it doesn't make much difference to me. The one thing you don't want to do is sell and then just let the cash sit.
So anyway, I got the word that I'm to open an online brokerage account to receive my shares. I spent some time doing that today. (I don't like the brokerage they chose - I think their costs are too high, but I don't expect to be with them long.)
There's one thing that disturbs me about distributing shares. If the stock is sold and the proceeds distributed, then everyone gets the same. If, however, shares are distributed, there is a potential for inequity.
Depending on the history and future of the company, $1 worth of stock in company ABC can be of greater intrinsic value than $1 worth of stock in company XYZ. For example, there's a big difference between $1000 in Exxon (future recovery), and $1000 in Millennium Cell (possible bankruptcy).
I don't know how many different stocks they're looking at (having been ousted from the executor position I'm no longer privy to that information until the accounting), but I sent them a note suggesting that shares be distributed by count in any one company. Divide the number of shares by the number of portions, distribute to the parties proportionately, sell any remainder (a maximum of six shares in every case), and distribute the sales proceeds. That's fair, everybody gets exactly the same, and it heads off any later claims of inequity.
Mainly, I want to let them know that I will object to any division that leaves me with all the crap stocks, even if the current value is nominally the same. And I can't assume they already thought of that.
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Showing posts with label estate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label estate. Show all posts
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Friday, June 06, 2008
1838 Jay's Stuff
Friday, June 6, 2008
While I was in Rochester, the eldest sister kept asking me if there was anything in the house that I wanted.
There wasn't a lot left except large pieces of furniture, and trash, and most of the furniture had pieces of tape on it with the names of the younger sisters and their daughters. The younger sisters and their husbands had gone through the house earlier, filled several dumpsters, and took home a few truckloads of the more portable good stuff. (Legal note - all of it is part of the estate, I'm entitled to a portion of that estate or the value thereof, and I'm thoroughly pissed that none of it had been appraised.)
There were only a few things that I wanted. One is a beautiful genuine Irish blackthorn walking stick I had given to the FIL a few years ago. The other was a few things that Jay had mentioned before he died: projects he had worked on, experimental photographs he had taken, his scouting badges, a carved wooden French Revolution chess set, stuff like that. He would have picked them up during an earlier visit to Rochester, but the FIL was a pack rat, and had no idea where any of Jay's stuff might be. I thought that perhaps the sisters would set Jay's things aside for me. But I didn't realize they were purging the house so soon, and I didn't get my word in before they filled the dumpsters.
The caregiver said she had seen the blackthorn before the FIL died. Now, of course, it's nowhere to be found, and everyone claims they didn't see it. Either someone has it and won't admit it, or several hundred dollars of blackthorn went into the dumpster. The caregiver brought me a box she spotted that had my name and "Jay's stuff" written on it. It contained a battered felt cowboy hat that would have been too small for him (I already have his good hats), a cheap chess set, and a six-inch stack of paper. That's all.
So Wednesday night in the hotel room I spent about three hours reading through the papers. It looks like they just found a file labeled "Jay" and threw the contents into a box without looking at it. It was all materials having to do with Jay's application for math summer enrichment programs when he was in high school. That's all.
He had to write essays for the applications. I read all of the typed essays, and thought, "This isn't Jay. He didn't write these." The style was his father's, not his, including the overuse of exclamation points! Like on sentences like this! That habit of his father used to drive Jay crazy!
And then I found one of the typed essays written in longhand. His father's longhand. Jay had always said that nothing he ever did was good enough for his father, that his father had always taken over on everything. This was almost like a haunting. I was reminded of when my daughter was writing essays for college applications. She would not allow me to so much as suggest anything. In fact, I never saw any of the essays she wrote. I have to contrast that with Jay's father's controlling everything. It was one of the reasons Jay had so much difficulty making decisions.
The stack happened to include a few letters Jay had written home from Paris (in longhand), when he had college summer internships there. Those I kept. All the rest of the contents of the box I threw out.
On Thursday I happened to notice a file cabinet in one of the upstairs bedrooms. I opened a drawer, and it was still full of paper. One file was labeled "Jay". I pulled the contents, and found all the letters I had written to his father during Jay's illness, detailing the diagnosis, the treatments, what was happening with Jay, right up to the end, when I had to warn his father about things he should avoid mentioning in phone calls, since Jay had no short term memory and it would just upset him.
I took those letters downstairs and put them in my tote bag, and didn't mention them to anyone.
.
While I was in Rochester, the eldest sister kept asking me if there was anything in the house that I wanted.
There wasn't a lot left except large pieces of furniture, and trash, and most of the furniture had pieces of tape on it with the names of the younger sisters and their daughters. The younger sisters and their husbands had gone through the house earlier, filled several dumpsters, and took home a few truckloads of the more portable good stuff. (Legal note - all of it is part of the estate, I'm entitled to a portion of that estate or the value thereof, and I'm thoroughly pissed that none of it had been appraised.)
There were only a few things that I wanted. One is a beautiful genuine Irish blackthorn walking stick I had given to the FIL a few years ago. The other was a few things that Jay had mentioned before he died: projects he had worked on, experimental photographs he had taken, his scouting badges, a carved wooden French Revolution chess set, stuff like that. He would have picked them up during an earlier visit to Rochester, but the FIL was a pack rat, and had no idea where any of Jay's stuff might be. I thought that perhaps the sisters would set Jay's things aside for me. But I didn't realize they were purging the house so soon, and I didn't get my word in before they filled the dumpsters.
The caregiver said she had seen the blackthorn before the FIL died. Now, of course, it's nowhere to be found, and everyone claims they didn't see it. Either someone has it and won't admit it, or several hundred dollars of blackthorn went into the dumpster. The caregiver brought me a box she spotted that had my name and "Jay's stuff" written on it. It contained a battered felt cowboy hat that would have been too small for him (I already have his good hats), a cheap chess set, and a six-inch stack of paper. That's all.
So Wednesday night in the hotel room I spent about three hours reading through the papers. It looks like they just found a file labeled "Jay" and threw the contents into a box without looking at it. It was all materials having to do with Jay's application for math summer enrichment programs when he was in high school. That's all.
He had to write essays for the applications. I read all of the typed essays, and thought, "This isn't Jay. He didn't write these." The style was his father's, not his, including the overuse of exclamation points! Like on sentences like this! That habit of his father used to drive Jay crazy!
And then I found one of the typed essays written in longhand. His father's longhand. Jay had always said that nothing he ever did was good enough for his father, that his father had always taken over on everything. This was almost like a haunting. I was reminded of when my daughter was writing essays for college applications. She would not allow me to so much as suggest anything. In fact, I never saw any of the essays she wrote. I have to contrast that with Jay's father's controlling everything. It was one of the reasons Jay had so much difficulty making decisions.
The stack happened to include a few letters Jay had written home from Paris (in longhand), when he had college summer internships there. Those I kept. All the rest of the contents of the box I threw out.
On Thursday I happened to notice a file cabinet in one of the upstairs bedrooms. I opened a drawer, and it was still full of paper. One file was labeled "Jay". I pulled the contents, and found all the letters I had written to his father during Jay's illness, detailing the diagnosis, the treatments, what was happening with Jay, right up to the end, when I had to warn his father about things he should avoid mentioning in phone calls, since Jay had no short term memory and it would just upset him.
I took those letters downstairs and put them in my tote bag, and didn't mention them to anyone.
.
Monday, June 02, 2008
1834 Shakeup
Monday, June 2, 2008
Today has been an up down all around shake it up day. I'm completely worn out.
I mentioned that Jay's father died a few weeks ago. Turns out there were some very sneaky and even illegal things done concerning his estate. It's turning into a real snakepit.
Piper predicted that stuff like this would happen, he sees it all the time, and I naively said no, not with these folks. He shook his head, and said that the larger the estate, the nastier the people.
Well, it's even worse than he figured.
No details, but let's postulate, just for sake of argument, that a second will has appeared, postdating the "known" one, and the second one was signed after someone was declared incompetent, without the knowledge of certain of the siblings, and threats have been made that if anyone fights it, the entire estate will be spent defending it and there won't be anything left for anyone, so shut up, and so on. Oh, and the house was cleaned out by some siblings without the knowledge of the others. Without any appraisals. And of course no one has any idea where the Academy Award went.
If there happened to be someone concerned who has been damaged by the new will, which she believes does not reflect his expressed wishes, and that particular someone would not have minded if she got nothing in the will if that was his desire, since she is only the widow of a deceased son, but had been told that she would get the deceased son's share in appreciation of what she had done for him, and that's what was in the first will, but she has been thrown a sop in the new will apparently on the theory that she's as greedy as the rest and will accept a pittance rather than the nothing she might get if she blew the whistle, well, if there happened to be someone like that,
Today has been an up down all around shake it up day. I'm completely worn out.
I mentioned that Jay's father died a few weeks ago. Turns out there were some very sneaky and even illegal things done concerning his estate. It's turning into a real snakepit.
Piper predicted that stuff like this would happen, he sees it all the time, and I naively said no, not with these folks. He shook his head, and said that the larger the estate, the nastier the people.
Well, it's even worse than he figured.
No details, but let's postulate, just for sake of argument, that a second will has appeared, postdating the "known" one, and the second one was signed after someone was declared incompetent, without the knowledge of certain of the siblings, and threats have been made that if anyone fights it, the entire estate will be spent defending it and there won't be anything left for anyone, so shut up, and so on. Oh, and the house was cleaned out by some siblings without the knowledge of the others. Without any appraisals. And of course no one has any idea where the Academy Award went.
If there happened to be someone concerned who has been damaged by the new will, which she believes does not reflect his expressed wishes, and that particular someone would not have minded if she got nothing in the will if that was his desire, since she is only the widow of a deceased son, but had been told that she would get the deceased son's share in appreciation of what she had done for him, and that's what was in the first will, but she has been thrown a sop in the new will apparently on the theory that she's as greedy as the rest and will accept a pittance rather than the nothing she might get if she blew the whistle, well, if there happened to be someone like that,
THEY GROSSLY OVERESTIMATED HER GREED AND UNDERESTIMATED HER CAPACITY TO STAND UP FOR MORAL PRINCIPLE AND THE RULE OF LAW !!!
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Friday, June 22, 2007
1318 Rich Uncles, Watch out!
Friday, June 22, 2007
The government takes a large chunk of a large estate in estate taxes, the so-called "death tax". Over the next few years, the federal estate tax code will allow an increasing amount of the estate to be exempt.
I did a little research on this a while ago, but it wasn't particularly important to me, so I didn't write down and don't remember the precise amounts or years, and don't feel like looking it up now, but at some point, the exemption reaches a maximum, and the next year it reverts to the original rates.
Um, what's gonna happen in December of the last year of the maximum exemption? How many plugs will get pulled on December 31?
Just wondering....
.
The government takes a large chunk of a large estate in estate taxes, the so-called "death tax". Over the next few years, the federal estate tax code will allow an increasing amount of the estate to be exempt.
I did a little research on this a while ago, but it wasn't particularly important to me, so I didn't write down and don't remember the precise amounts or years, and don't feel like looking it up now, but at some point, the exemption reaches a maximum, and the next year it reverts to the original rates.
Um, what's gonna happen in December of the last year of the maximum exemption? How many plugs will get pulled on December 31?
Just wondering....
.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
1243 SOS - Please, Someone, Save Me!
Saturday, May 12, 2007
I'm sitting in a hotel room in Rochester, NY, suffering an optical migraine, and wishing I could be anywhere else.
I arrived about 7 pm and went directly to the father-in-law's house. Jay's father. I guess he's technically not my FIL any more, I don't know, I sure can't call him my late FIL, and "my late husband's father" is so awkward. Well, anyway, most of the first and second level blood clan was there. Youngest sister (YS) and her husband (YSH) and two daughters, middle sister (MS) and her husband (MSH) and two daughters, and eldest sister (ES) and her husband (ESH).
Of them all, I like ESH best. He's smart and reasonable. ES is also nice, except when she gets insistent, and usually any unpleasantness blows over quickly. She's very like her father - figures that once she's thought something out, she's obviously right and any additional information is superfluous. She'll ride right over objections. Other than that we get along ok. She appreciates all I did for her little brother.
MS I don't know at all. Oddly, Jay didn't seem to know her well, either. It seems like they would have been close in age (ES and I are the same age), but I get the impression there may have been some odd family dynamics. MSH is nice, but I have had very rare opportunity to talk with him - I don't push in, and he's reticent in mixed male/female company. MS completely ignores me.
YS and YSH and their daughters seem to dislike me strongly. I do hold some very small animosity toward her from back when Jay was ill. They live only 30 minutes down the road from us, and several times when Jay fell during the night and I couldn't get him up, I called them to ask for help, and not only did they not answer the phone, but they didn't return the call. (That was before I invented my version of the fireman's lift and could get his 6'3" 245 pounds off the floor and onto the bed myself.)
Before Jay and I were married, when Jay's father came down our way to visit, he always stayed with them. After we were married I suggested that he could stay with us half the times. Pow! We got him 100%! YSH didn't like him, and grabbed the opportunity to pass him off entirely on us.
When I took Jay to the hospice wing when he was in the final stages, I called YS and said that if she wanted to see him before he died (she didn't visit him at home the whole last year) she should come now. Her response was "Oh, well, we've heard that before", and she didn't come.
Jay always said YS seemed to have no opinions of her own. She is in thrall to her husband, and likes or dislikes as he dictates. Jay and I found the two of them incredibly boring. Their only topics of conversation are their girls and not-so-amusing stories abut their animals - an iguana, somewhere between five and seven cats, and three greyhounds - and the three greyhounds go with them everywhere, regardless of their host's preferences.
I wonder if they've ever had an original idea between them.
Anyway, they weren't as polite in their ignoring of me as MS. MS simply didn't see me. YS and YSH, and their daughters, actively shut me out. They didn't look at me, literally turned their backs, ignored any comments I tried to contribute to conversation. It was a very obvious shunning.
Ok, I can see where there might be some old wounds that haven't healed. Jay and I did not initiate contact, back when, as much as maybe we should have (but good grief, they're so BORING!), and there were a few incidents. But nothing that should earn me this animosity.
There's only one thing I can think of, and it bothers me that I even think it, but it's there. I am in the old man's will to inherit Jay's share of his estate. I have not seen the will, so I don't know whether the estate is distributed among the four siblings (three sisters and me), or whether it's shared among the grandchildren, too, and I have no idea how much is involved (although I suspect it is considerable). Worse, ES and I are named as the executors.
I know enough about YSH to know that this galls him to the core. That I am in the will, set to inherit as much as his wife.
I really think that's it.
Happy 90th birthday, Dad. Please have many more.
.
I'm sitting in a hotel room in Rochester, NY, suffering an optical migraine, and wishing I could be anywhere else.
I arrived about 7 pm and went directly to the father-in-law's house. Jay's father. I guess he's technically not my FIL any more, I don't know, I sure can't call him my late FIL, and "my late husband's father" is so awkward. Well, anyway, most of the first and second level blood clan was there. Youngest sister (YS) and her husband (YSH) and two daughters, middle sister (MS) and her husband (MSH) and two daughters, and eldest sister (ES) and her husband (ESH).
Of them all, I like ESH best. He's smart and reasonable. ES is also nice, except when she gets insistent, and usually any unpleasantness blows over quickly. She's very like her father - figures that once she's thought something out, she's obviously right and any additional information is superfluous. She'll ride right over objections. Other than that we get along ok. She appreciates all I did for her little brother.
MS I don't know at all. Oddly, Jay didn't seem to know her well, either. It seems like they would have been close in age (ES and I are the same age), but I get the impression there may have been some odd family dynamics. MSH is nice, but I have had very rare opportunity to talk with him - I don't push in, and he's reticent in mixed male/female company. MS completely ignores me.
YS and YSH and their daughters seem to dislike me strongly. I do hold some very small animosity toward her from back when Jay was ill. They live only 30 minutes down the road from us, and several times when Jay fell during the night and I couldn't get him up, I called them to ask for help, and not only did they not answer the phone, but they didn't return the call. (That was before I invented my version of the fireman's lift and could get his 6'3" 245 pounds off the floor and onto the bed myself.)
Before Jay and I were married, when Jay's father came down our way to visit, he always stayed with them. After we were married I suggested that he could stay with us half the times. Pow! We got him 100%! YSH didn't like him, and grabbed the opportunity to pass him off entirely on us.
When I took Jay to the hospice wing when he was in the final stages, I called YS and said that if she wanted to see him before he died (she didn't visit him at home the whole last year) she should come now. Her response was "Oh, well, we've heard that before", and she didn't come.
Jay always said YS seemed to have no opinions of her own. She is in thrall to her husband, and likes or dislikes as he dictates. Jay and I found the two of them incredibly boring. Their only topics of conversation are their girls and not-so-amusing stories abut their animals - an iguana, somewhere between five and seven cats, and three greyhounds - and the three greyhounds go with them everywhere, regardless of their host's preferences.
I wonder if they've ever had an original idea between them.
Anyway, they weren't as polite in their ignoring of me as MS. MS simply didn't see me. YS and YSH, and their daughters, actively shut me out. They didn't look at me, literally turned their backs, ignored any comments I tried to contribute to conversation. It was a very obvious shunning.
Ok, I can see where there might be some old wounds that haven't healed. Jay and I did not initiate contact, back when, as much as maybe we should have (but good grief, they're so BORING!), and there were a few incidents. But nothing that should earn me this animosity.
There's only one thing I can think of, and it bothers me that I even think it, but it's there. I am in the old man's will to inherit Jay's share of his estate. I have not seen the will, so I don't know whether the estate is distributed among the four siblings (three sisters and me), or whether it's shared among the grandchildren, too, and I have no idea how much is involved (although I suspect it is considerable). Worse, ES and I are named as the executors.
I know enough about YSH to know that this galls him to the core. That I am in the will, set to inherit as much as his wife.
I really think that's it.
Happy 90th birthday, Dad. Please have many more.
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