Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Unusual Things Happen Every Day…
In a recent article in the Huffington
Post financial
columnist Don McNay tells the frustrating, sad, and “unusual” story of how the
greater part of his mother’s and his sister’s estates ended up in the hands of
people they would never have chosen to receive it… all because neither of them
had a will or estate plan when they died.
When McNay’s
mother died unexpectedly in April 2006 neither he nor his sister really worried
about her lack of a will. After all, “her only asset was our childhood home,
and my sister and I were her only children. We would split the ownership of the
house equally.” McNay paid for the funeral, and “advanced the estate money to
pay delinquent property taxes, some outstanding bills, and the mortgage on
Mom's house,” and he and his sister worked out an informal deal to even things
up financially once the estate was settled and the house was mortgaged.
Tragically,
his sister fell down some steps and died in October 2006, also without a will,
and this is when the real trouble began. Although his sister had left her
husband years before, they had never formally divorced; which meant that
McNay’s sister’s share of their mother’s estate now belonged to her ex-husband,
her adult son, and her minor daughter—and none of it would be used to reimburse
McNay for what he had lent the estate.
McNay writes
honestly and persuasively about his experience, and we recommend reading the entire article, but the long and short of it is
this: After several rounds in court, after the involvement of several
attorneys, and after being forced to sell the family home for less than what it
was worth, “the person who got the most money from my mother's estate was my
former brother-in-law.”
Unfortunately,
McNay’s story is all too common. Situations such as this one could be easily
(and inexpensively) avoided simply by consulting an attorney and drawing up a
simple will; and yet more than 60 percent of Americans don't have wills.
Whether it’s because they’re uncomfortable thinking about their own death,
think they’re too young to worry about it, or simply feel they don’t have
enough assets to worry about it, more than half of Americans today refuse to
take the one simple step that can protect their families from heartache and
expense.
We suspect
that most people believe (erroneously) that this kind of thing just won’t
happen to them. After all, as McNay
writes in his article, “My family's series of events was unusual,” but then
again, “unusual things happen every day.”