I have just read an excellent article on
www.fa-mag.com that I highly recommend to all readers. The main theme it deals with is the idea of leaving a distribution among your children that is not equal, and goes into several reasons why parents might want to do this. It discusses "equal" versus "fair" and does a great job of looking into why the kids might think your plans are unfair. It also talks about ways to prevent an unequal distribution from becoming a problem.
Click here to read it.
This is a lengthy article, but in my view it shows a lot of common sense from people with great experience in the field. It recommends family meetings between parents and (adult) children to discuss estate planning. As you all know, I'm an advocate of
Estate Planning Through Family Meetings as I have seen the benefit of family members communicating.
My brother and sister had POA for 2 years before my father died. He was a thrifty man but they decided to give him $1000 a month cash to spend, although he had never spent that kind of money in his entire life. they spent almost $17,000 before he died and not one cent went back into the bank account after his death. I think they both stole it all. there was no accounting for what he bought, he also didn't drive so my sister, the POA drove him everywhere so she knew what he was doing and spending. He also had a credit card that she racked up $14,000 on during that time, again my dad never spent that kind of money in his life on himself. Now they are both Executors and unaccountable for their time as POA, the balance in the bank accounts at the time of his death is all they propose to account for, nothing before that. They said that they have him exactly $1,000 and left him to spend it on whatever he wanted. I don't believe that. My dad could hardly make sense of anything before he died, that would not have happened. he was in bed sleeping a lot, and in hospital for 2 months before he died. They said everything was gone. I don't believe it and I'm mad as hell. Is there anything I can do. Now they want to do an interim distribution of the will proceeds. However the lawer wants me to sign an indemnity and release statement, I can't do that knowing that I believe the opening balanes in the bank accounts were wrong because of the apparent wrong doing before his death. Should I pursue this? Should I call the police? I'm wondering what your thoughts are inthis regard Many thanks Lin.
ReplyDelete