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  • slefain

    Aug. 21, 2008 1:38 p.m. slefain Dork

    I have to vent this somewhere.

    My grandmother died 2 years ago. She left my dad jack squat, but left my adopted bastard ex-con jobless uncle her house and all her insurance and stocks. Well, turns out her insurance was written up wrong, so my dad got some money out of it anyway. My family takes care of all the funeral stuff out of the money my dad got and my bastard uncle never even shows up to say goodbye or offers to pay a dime of the funeral expenses.

    Fast forward one year: my bastard uncle makes a deal with his idiot boss to sell the house, even though my uncle still hasn't taken legal possession of the house title. The idiot boss had been making the house payments for months while my bastard uncle was (drum roll) back in prison!. Well, the boss misses a few payments and the house is about to get foreclosed. My father gets a frantic phone call from the idiot boss's lawyer asking for dad and myself to sign paperwork to immediately sign the house over to my bastard uncle. We had washed our hands of this long ago and thought it was over.

    Nope, turns out my bastard uncle pissed off my great-uncle (executor of the will) so much over his laziness that the will had never been probated. My great-uncle dropped off the box of will paperwork at the house and told my bastard uncle he quits and walked off (go uncle Rick). So Dad agrees to sign over whatever paperwork they need in exchange for being made executor of the estate (cause my bastard uncle never did anything with the stocks either). Paperwork gets shuffled and signed and that gets done.

    Fast forward 3 months: my dad gets a letter from the court saying the house is being foreclosed AGAIN and that the house is still in grandma's name! The woman has been dead 2 years, but she still owns the house. So now my dad is the executor of the will, and who knows what happened with my bastard uncle and his idiot boss (jail? aliens? dead? don't know, don't care). Funny thing is, the idiot boss already started doing home improvements! The lot is clean and the house is clean and empty.

    So now I'm trying to convince my dad to use his power as executor of the will to just sell the damn house, pay off the mortgage, and pocket the rest. Dad isn't so keen on the idea but I already have a real estate agent friend who has offered to help with all the legal paperwork.

    This whole thing is just nuts. I'd go after the house in a heartbeat if I thought I could. My bastard uncle has had 2 chances to make something out of it, I say he's done. More than likely my dad is just going to step back and let the house go. I know in his mind he's doing grandma's wishes to let my bastard uncle have the house, but at some point logic has to come into it.

  • Mental

    Aug. 21, 2008 1:43 p.m. Mental UltraDork

    Propose to him to sell the house, pocket the differnce, remove his expenses from it and leave the $$ in escrow for when bastard uncle gets out. Then he is doing Grandmas will and the house doesn't fall apart waiting on the bank papaerwork to re-sell it.

  • Jensenman

    Aug. 21, 2008 1:56 p.m. Jensenman UltimaDork

    That's a crappy situation to be in. Sorry to hear about it.

    As our older relatives get, well, older this becomes a very important thing to handle. When my father in law died unexpectedly, he had no will. It took about two years to clear up the small estate he left. FWIW, five years later there's still a couple of things yet to clear up, mostly with some stocks he owned.

    OTOH, my wife's grandmother had everything planeed out well in advance. Her estate was done inside of six weeks.

    It's not being morbid to ask your older relatives if they have all their affairs in order. It can be a great comfort for them to know it's all done, actually. I asked my grandmother if she had cleared up her affairs shortly after my wife's grandmother died, she said she hadn't. I told her I did not want to know what her plans were, only that if things were going to be handled as she wished that it would probably be best to have her affairs in order. About three months later, she told me she had had a will done and that it had taken a great load off of her mind. She's still kickin' five years later, BTW.

  • billy3esq

    Aug. 21, 2008 3:25 p.m. billy3esq Dork

    Slefain wrote:

    So now I'm trying to convince my dad to use his power as executor of the will to just sell the damn house, pay off the mortgage, and pocket the rest. Dad isn't so keen on the idea but I already have a real estate agent friend who has offered to help with all the legal paperwork.

    Mental wrote:

    Propose to him to sell the house, pocket the differnce, remove his expenses from it and leave the $$ in escrow for when bastard uncle gets out. Then he is doing Grandmas will and the house doesn't fall apart waiting on the bank papaerwork to re-sell it.

    1. Slefain's dad needs to talk to a lawyer. The estate's lawyer might do, but, frankly, the fact that this has dragged on like this leads me to believe that he's an idiot, too.

    2. Slefain's proposal quoted above is likely a felony (theft by a fiduciary). At best it is an extremely bad idea. Executors are there to "execute" the will, not rewrite it.

    3. If the lawyer your dad talks to says anything that's too different from what Mental wrote, find another one unless he's got a very, very good explanation for it.

    Slefain wrote:

    More than likely my dad is just going to step back and let the house go. I know in his mind he's doing grandma's wishes to let my bastard uncle have the house, but at some point logic has to come into it.

    Letting the house go back is also not really a good idea. If I were the worthless brother's lawyer, I'd argue that one or more of the lawyer, the great uncle (1st executor), or dad (2nd executor) was negligent, which caused deadbeat to lose the difference between the fair market value of the house and whatever it brings at foreclosure less the outstanding mortgage. It is also likely that the mortgagee could further recover against the stocks if the foreclosure sale doesn't bring enough to cover the obligation, which would further increase the damages caused by said negligence.

    Dad's negligence might be excused by the fact that he showed up late to the executor party, but maybe not. I don't know the details in your jurisdiction (or even what jurisdiction it is), but I'd be willing to bet deadbeat uncle could find a lawyer to take that one on a contingency. Also because of the fiduciary relationship and/or the potential for gross negligence, punitive damages might be on the table.

    And, for the record, logic has little to do with it. This falls more into the category of "two wrongs don't make a right." Incidentally, it also reads like a bar exam essay question.

    Usual disclaimers apply. I'm not anybody's lawyer; we don't have an attorney-client relationship; yadda, yadda, yadda. You can't sue me when this blows up in your face; you haven't paid me enough.

  • slefain

    Aug. 21, 2008 3:51 p.m. slefain Dork

    billy3esq wrote:

    Slefain wrote:

    So now I'm trying to convince my dad to use his power as executor of the will to just sell the damn house, pay off the mortgage, and pocket the rest. Dad isn't so keen on the idea but I already have a real estate agent friend who has offered to help with all the legal paperwork.

    Mental wrote:

    Propose to him to sell the house, pocket the differnce, remove his expenses from it and leave the $$ in escrow for when bastard uncle gets out. Then he is doing Grandmas will and the house doesn't fall apart waiting on the bank papaerwork to re-sell it.

    1. Slefain's dad needs to talk to a lawyer. The estate's lawyer might do, but, frankly, the fact that this has dragged on like this leads me to believe that he's an idiot, too.

    2. Slefain's proposal quoted above is likely a felony (theft by a fiduciary). At best it is an extremely bad idea. Executors are there to "execute" the will, not rewrite it.

    3. If the lawyer your dad talks to says anything that's too different from what Mental wrote, find another one unless he's got a very, very good explanation for it.

    Usual disclaimers apply. I'm not anybody's lawyer; we don't have an attorney-client relationship; yadda, yadda, yadda. You can't sue me when this blows up in your face; you haven't paid me enough.

    Yeah, I figured as much. Seems that it's a waste to let the house go (sorry grandpa), but I'm not going to go into any illegal routes to do anything to stop it. Oh well.

    Funny thing is, technically we have been "done" with this three times, with each time falling through due to my bastard uncle's inaction. My dad keeps trying to close things out but he keeps getting dragged back in. Maybe the house will finally be foreclosed on and we'll have heard the last of it.

    BTW, I didn't mention that my dumbass bastard uncle tried to CASH his half on the insurance check at the Publix my grandma worked at. That's right, a $21,000 check he tried to cash like it was his $400 pay check on Friday. The nice lady suggested he walk across the parking lot to the bank and promptly called my dad. Eventually he endorsed the check to his friend "Bubba" who deposited the money into his own checking account. We don't know what happened after that except that he later was arrested for DUI without a license while driving my grandma's car (still in her name). The car was impounded and was left with the county to be sold off at auction. Grandma's truck (a nice '94 Ranger) was left at the house and got hauled off after the first foreclosure happened. Both cars were supposedly left to my bastard uncle in the will, but he never did the paperwork. And all the paperwork for the will that my great-uncle dropped off? It was all in grandma's car, which is long gone now.

    So next time you think YOU have a messed up family member, be glad you're not me.

  • DrBoost

    Aug. 21, 2008 4:14 p.m. DrBoost Reader

    Can I have the house????

    Sorry, but I just HAD to.

  • nocarbud

    Aug. 21, 2008 4:34 p.m. nocarbud New Reader

    yeah, where is it and how much do you need to get for it?

 

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