Boyfriend's grandma passed away

[luv]

My boyfriend's grandma been in a nursing home for about a year and a half, and, while not unexpected, her passing still hurts. There has already been some estate issues in recent months that have caused a huge rift between his dad and aunt. I'm not sure how her passing will affect all of that, but his dad already told him that he already said his goodbyes and would not be attending the funeral. This news did not sit well with my boyfriend. Any issues that family members may have with each other need to be set aside for 24 hours in order to honor their loved one's memory. He told his dad as much, so he hopes he reconsiders.

Anyway, a few of you have met my boyfriend, so I figured that, while I'm not really a praying person, I'd ask for prayers and good thoughts here. Thanks.

[htismaqe]

Money crap tears apart families. I hate it. I've seen it happen 3 times in 3 years. Hopefully they'll get over it. Sorry for your loss.

[Simply Red]

You got it Luv - prayers up and out to you and him and the rest of the family.

[Hydrae]

P&T out for you and the extended family.

Tough times with a lot of emotion and these things can get out of hand easily. Good luck to the BF.

[Stewie]

I thought you were married.

[Easy 6]

Sorry to hear it, luv

Was in the room when my maternal Grandma died, it never leaves you but gets better over time

As for the estate battle, my Lord what is it about a death that brings out the VERY worst side of people? Everyone suddenly becomes SO greedy and possessive... my family is still dealing with that kinda situation some 20 years after the death of said Grandma

Folks who loved each other dearly, suddenly at each others throats... it's sickening and sad

[Prison Bitch]

Never pegged Luv as the religious type. May many prayers head your way

[CrazyPhuD]

Sorry to hear, it's never an easy thing to lose family, even extended ones. Hopefully your boyfriend's dad will reconsider. At this time I hope he asks, what would his mother want? No mother wants to see her kids fighting, especially at a time like this. You go, not for you or your sister, but for your mother. Anger is fleeting, regret can last a lifetime.

[luv]

I thought you were married.

Nope. We do have a child together, though.

[luv]

Never pegged Luv as the religious type. May many prayers head your way

Should have seen me 20 years ago. I guess life has me questioning much more than not these days, but I still find that knowing people are thinking about you can help more than you realize. :)

[BigRedChief]

Nope. We do have a child together, though.and he’s a one helluva cute kid too. No BS. :clap:

Since I have met the boyfriend, I’ll chime in. He seemed to me a fun loving kind of guy. Don’t get in the middle of the squabble. Stay out of the family rift. Maybe later he can patch stuff up later.

My wife’s grandmother died. Him and his brother had a rift over money. Even though neither needed money. Lasted for years. Didn’t speak to each other. Really stupid.

Several years later my wife got them back together to patch things up for a wedding anniversary celebration. Been cool ever since. People can be really stupid over money. Just stay out of the way and come back in when cooler heads may prevail.

This may not be about money but it’s about something felt deep. Stay out of it beyond the general comment to let’s just get along, we are family kind of thing.

[TrebMaxx]

Condolences for your families loss.

As for the estate stuff, that really sucks. When my mother passed away she had appointed me as the executor of her will. She was pretty darn smart put it right out there. Anyone that disputed any part of the will would receive nothing but one dollar. Kept things kosher whenever one of my sisters started to get a bit out of hand over something. All I had to do was remind them of the dollar clause and I that I would use it!

[SuperChief]

We get it, you have a significant other :rolleyes:

Kidding. Condolences to you and yours.

[gblowfish]

My mom passed last year. Luckily, my two sisters and I were all in lock step on the estate stuff, and there was no drama around any of it. My family is not super wealthy, this seems to be more of a big problem when mega bucks are involved.

[Festus]

Sorry for your loss. Prayers for you and your man. Life is for the living. Funerals are for the living. I hope his dad goes to the funeral for his SON and sets aside the hurt feelings for now

[luv]

My mom passed last year. Luckily, my two sisters and I were all in lock step on the estate stuff, and there was no drama around any of it. My family is not super wealthy, this seems to be more of a big problem when mega bucks are involved.

This property has sentimental value. Not worth that much in the long run. Aunt wants to keep it, dad wants to sell it. That's really only part of the situation, but, now that she's passed, it's really the only thing left to worry about. I think it was left to them with 50/50 interest. Not sure how they're going to handle it. Aunt can't afford to buy dad's interest, and dad doesn't have majority interest in order to evict.

[BigRedChief]

This property has sentimental value. Not worth that much in the long run. Aunt wants to keep it, dad wants to sell it. That's really only part of the situation, but, now that she's passed, it's really the only thing left to worry about. I think it was left to them with 50/50 interest. Not sure how they're going to handle it. Aunt can't afford to buy dad's interest, and dad doesn't have majority interest in order to evict.after the events above, her other grsndma goes into the nursing home. This one had a large farm, barn, equipment, cattle government money coming in from land not used. Other 3 siblings want to sell everything and split it up. My wife’s mom wants to keep the family farm and live there in retirement where she was born. The other siblings want their money now, moms not gone but she ain’t moving back to the farm. They push her hard to sell. She ends up giving them full price for everything. They all get their money in cash even though she’s not dead yet. Caused some minor conflicts until they all died.

[Stewie]

Ah, he needs to put a ring on it.

[TrebMaxx]

Easy fix. Aunt buys out the dad on it.

[Shaid]

My dad died 9 years ago. At the time he left a 100k policy to my mom and she got to continue collecting his pension. He also left a chunk of money which was from his farm(small farm) he owned to pass to the kids in a trust. The idea being that mom already had enough to live off the pension(they already had been doing so) but the policy could get her over bumps in the road or unexpected things. It was also in an account that would earn 5% a year guaranteed. You can't add to that account, just take out, but that is a nice little extra 5k a year to handle issues, etc. The trust was supposed to be for the kids with the understanding that if she did have a need at some point, we could pull from the trust. It's 200k so not much when you split between 7 kids anyways. We met about the trust after he passed and agreed on some investment strategies and I never really thought much about it after that as he made my sister the executor since she was unmarried when he drafted the will - wanted to avoid in-law disputes since he had seen those cause problems before.

Well, we went to move my mom closer to us around a year ago(4 of us kids are in the same general area). The sale of her house wasn't going to make as much as we wanted to get her into a decent place up here so I told everyone we should meet and discuss mom's finances, the house, trust, etc. to see where it all sat. I figured the trust probably would have doubled in the course of what was 8 year at that time and so if we needed to take a bit out to help get her in a better place, we could do that. I also thought she must have most of that policy still as she really didn't make any huge purchase outside of a new car but when she had done so I told her to take a loan at 0.9% and to just pay for it with the interest from the policy. Simple.

Well first, my mom just cashed that money out to buy a new car instead of paying it with the interest, didn't want to deal with a loan. My brother had also passed away and she essentially gave his wife 40k to pay for the funeral and just to help her get into a better situation during the first year after he passed. He did have a policy of his own and investments, etc. but none of us know how much as she never disclosed any of that to us. Anyways, long story short, that emergency fund of hers was down to about 20k.

As for the trust, my sister had basically sat on it and didn't make the investment moves that we had discussed. It didn't make a dime over that time and easily would have doubled with just basic investments. So now we are looking at a situation where my mom could live another 25 years, we don't know if she may need in home care, cancer treatments, or really anything during that time. I'm not willing to let the trust go below the initial 200k because we need it to grow for those unknown emergencies.

After many meetings, we agreed on a new investment strategy for the trust, which it is in now. My mom is in a 2 bedroom condo with a garage and elevator where they clear the snow, etc. all for her, but she has a 20k loan, and I sat down with her and went through her budget and got rid of expenses like Sirious XM, OnStar, etc so she is in a more manageable spot. We put a strategy down on how she can save money to travel a couple times a year to TX to see my sister, etc. We got rid of her credit card bills that were past due, etc. I have a feeling that she is probably still making some bad financial choices but I can only do so much without putting her on an allowance and I really don't want us to have to get to that stage.

Money does cause tensions and rifts in a family. In my case, I was able to at least mostly fix the problem and get everyone on the same page because none of the strategies I talked about were for my own enrichment but for the long term goal of making sure my mom was in a good spot not just this year but 20 years from now. Now, it's possible some people might look at it and say I'm greedy because I didn't just have us take money out of the trust. I see a situation where my mom ran through nearly 100k and the trust hasn't done anything. I see that as very insulting to my dad's legacy and if it continued, everything he worked for would be gone and my mom would be left with nothing. Now, I was able to get my siblings to see that, other people aren't so lucky.

[htismaqe]

Easy fix. Aunt buys out the dad on it.

Aunt can't afford it and dad can't kick her out because he doesn't have controlling interest. Luv actually posted that 3 posts ago. ;)

[fan4ever]

Ah, he needs to put a ring on it.

Doesn't look like he does...

[oldman]

I can tell you estate things can screw up a family. One of my uncles, a lifelong bachelor, died and left everything to his sister. My dad was OK with it, but my other uncle (no kids) who took care of him for years wasn't happy, especially the way my aunt handled it. He was so bitter about it that he disinherited my aunt and her family. In the meantime, my dad passed away, so that left only my sister, me, and two of my his wife's nephews as heirs. Even though the inheritance was small, my cousins still make snide remarks about it and my aunt hasn't spoken to me or my sis since.

[luv]

Easy fix. Aunt buys out the dad on it.

It may not be an issue after all. My boyfriend's dad came over last night, and they talked. His dad said that seeing his mom laying in bed just gave him a sense of inner peace. He carried around a lot of resentment for a long time over things that happened after his dad died, and he didn't want things to be like that after his mom died. I only piped in to tell him that was great, but did it resolve the material issues at hand? He's not going to try to do anything with the property (at least as long as my boyfriend's aunt lives there). I believe he's also reconsidering going to the funeral, which seemed to be a big relief to my boyfriend.

[SAUTO]

family and money can REALLY suck.

[stevieray]

Prayer thread turns into a discussion about money and material things.

:(

[htismaqe]

Prayer thread turns into a discussion about money and material things.

:(

Money and material things tend to be the source of a great many of our problems as human beings, no? For that, we should (appropriately) pray.