Thread: when the parents pass Away

Originally Posted by ceejay77

Not a Pleasant question or thought but my parents are in the 80s and fading fast.
what happens when the parents are gone,will and testimony,legal issues,selling of house and property,lawyers involvement and cost,unfortunately I will have to go down this road soon...any advice for me

Are you in the USA? Do you have any siblings? If you're the only child then I would imagine that your parents would leave their belongings to you. If not, you'll need to hash things out with siblings or anyone else who may be in their will.

When my grandmother passed away in 2005 (grandpa having passed away back in the '90s) her will stated that all her properties and investments were to be split equally between her three children, which was my Mom and her two brothers. What they did was have a trust created in grandma's name from which everything would be divvied out. I have no doubt this was handled by a lawyer, but I wasn't involved so I don't know how much the costs would be.

myself and 2 sisters,dad said it will be split between us we get on well so won't be a problem rather keep the folks than their money,a trust is a idea for the house perhaps.

the only issue in this area is the legal matters. If you have trust in your family then all you need to be particular is the transfer of the will to each member of the family. which involves blood sucking lawyers and gov. well they have to be like that... its there nature... .. but least of all this must be settled by the family members..

Originally Posted by ceejay77

myself and 2 sisters,dad said it will be split between us we get on well so won't be a problem rather keep the folks than their money,a trust is a idea for the house perhaps.

What I would suggest is that the property put in a trust, and then a living trust is established... So you avoid probate and death taxes, etc. You and your sisters can be 33.3% benficiaries of the trust, and all the instructions of what your parents want to do with their estate can be drawn up. Just having a Will just delays processing of the estate, and then you have taxes, and atty fees... A MESS. The living trust avoids all that, by a set of instructions of what they want, instead of having an attorney try to figure out what they wanted.

The trust documents could be written extremely tight, to it could have instructions of how the beneficiaries could "buy out the other beneficiaries", etc.

Definately trusts save you money and stress... EVERYONE should have them!

A living trust something else I can look into as would like to keep the lawyers out of it,good recommendations,much appreciated.

your question is a legal one that should be answered by an attorney. As a REALTOR I have seen both trusts and wills have their own set of troubles.

Every family has it's own set of issues and although you all get along - having a legal document - will save a lot of issues later.

It's really peculiar. Up until my both of my mother's parents pased away, I always thought that she & her 2 brothers got along without a hitch. After grandma's passing it was interesting to see the rifts that occured between them. Grandma was the last thing holding them together it seemed. If I don't ever see them all in the same room again I won't be surprised. I hope that kind of thing won't happen to my sister and I, many years later...