I hate dealing with this kind of thing
-
An insurance policy should have a named beneficiary which would remove it from probate, much like an IRA with a beneficiary. Could it be the beneficiary was your mother, is deceased or otherwise invalid? That could be a reason to make it part of the estate.
-
Thanks. Yes, I didn't think a life insurance policy went through probate either. It's like a POD arrangement as far as I know.
I vaguely remember my mother doing business with MetLife back in the day Snoopy was their mascot.
The beneficiary couldn't have been my mother or father. I don't believe it would be my brother's daughter.
Mysteriously, the only deceased person who was alive when my mother died was my sister. My sister never mentioned this policy.
My theory is she wasn't aware of it.
All of the money was my mother's money. She inherited it from her father. My father inherited it from her.
I was asked to sign something at the time (I think it would have been agreeing not to contest her will). I was told my brother, sister, and I signed this, the effect being her will could skip the six months probate process in NYS.
My father, mother's brother, and her sister were determined that her children and grandchild should not receive $1 after she died.
I think that they would have hidden a life insurance policy. I have no problem believing it when I remember the way they behaved at the time.
My father and his brother brought a lawyer to my mother's death bed. They made sure I was written out of the will. The will left everything to my father. That was ridiculous.
I think my brother and cousin might be thinking I will be excluded as a beneficiary if the life insurance policy can be made a part of of my father's estate, based on my mother's will.
My cousin told me she didn't know if my mother had a will and it's something she had to track down.
This seemed to be apropos of nothing. I didn't reply to it.
-
Yeah, my cousin must know the details. She didn't know what was in the accounts off the top of her head. So, she has a list of each account in the estate and the amount in each one.
wtf, maybe, but knowing my mother, the chances are in the low end of the spectrum next to nothing.
-
Sounds like a mess.
A family trust would have made this much simpler.
-
Looks like no trust at all.
If there was a trust there would be no probate attorney
-
I opened an account with a "too big to fail" bank. Don't tell Rick!
I applied for three accounts, the first two said no, and the third one said yes.
You get an--"It's official, Daniel!" page with a nice doodle in orange and yellow tones of a black hand shaking a white hand in front with their arms encircling a town or small city.
You call them and speak to a "banker" instead of an agent.
So my debit card was supposed to be sent USPS and take five to seventh day. It didn't arrive on the seventh day so I cancelled it and had it expedited FexEx. No fee.
So, my intuition was correct. I got the mailing last night. Everything was fine except the card was missing.
Well, I reread the lawyer's letter and its saying the estate needs to be reopened. I missed this detail.
My Dad died in October. Nobody told me the estate was closed.
I don't think any less of my brother because I had a meditation about. I went back in my memory to a time he might have been three. I was fourteen years old. Then I kind of snapped out of my memory. I was sad for a moment. I think it was because of the intensity of the experience. I realized he is the same person he was all those years ago. I also realized I love my brother today the same as then.
But, boy, he and my cousin have been telling lies. There's no reason not to use the word-- lies. I've caught them out in several at this point.
I'm going to research the Surrogate Court process and the case if possible.
I'm going to research MetLife.
I'm going to do this before Monday.
-
Most middle class families in the Mid-century might have been able to afford to set up trust funds but it wasn't in their DNA.
My mother told the lawyer who visited her in the hospital when she was dying (paid for by my father and his brother) she wanted $50,000 to go into a trust for her granddaughter's education and she wanted $10,000 to go to her granddaughter's mother for home repairs.
My sister told me many people witnessed this but the lawyer claimed these requests were impossible to understand, and after some time, my father convinced her to sign the will his lawyer put in front of her.
The tumor attached to her lower spine, the brain cancer, and a single chemotherapy treatment for her brain had her sad and discouraged.
In the final analysis, I think she was in too much pain to write the will she would've written it the clock could have been turned back three weeks.
