My father recently passed away, rather suddenly. He was almost 70. He left his estate to be equally divided between Lottie, his wife of the past 18 years, and me. We are to act as co-executors of the estate, so nothing gets settled unless we can both agree. I live in a nearby state, so that only complicates matters since everything in settling an estate is "hurry up and wait" anyway.
I am my father's only child and I am in my mid-forties. Lottie is in her late 60's and has 3 adult children, who I knew in high school. I was not good friends with any of them back then and since we were all adults when our parents married, we are not close now either. My father earned the lion's share of the money in the relationship. He was retired and had a nice pension, which Lottie will be continuing to draw for quite some time in the future. The house is paid for, as are the car, the truck, the two boats, and the piece of land that only has a well and septic on it at this point. There are 3 life insurance policies. My father never updated the beneficiary information on the first 2 policies that I heard back on so far. The life insurance is set to be paid out to my former stepmother, who is now deceased, or to me as the contingent beneficiary. There is about $75,000 in life insurance that I will be getting as a result of his procrastination, if all three policies turn out to have the same beneficiary information.
The life insurance money is not legally considered to be part of the estate, however, I know that Lottie is going to look at it as being part of the estate. I know that her oldest son will know the difference, but he is going to do everything possible to protect her interest in this, which is understandable since she only has a 7th or 8th grade education and is completely lost without my father. I know that Lottie will not have the liquid assets to buy me out of my half. I do not want to buy her out of her half either, because I don't need a house up there. I don't want the land. I don't need boats. I really don't want the Cadillac or the truck either. To buy me out, we are looking at her needing to have about $80,000 (most likely a lowball estimate) to cover the house, the cars, the boats, the tools, the land, savings & checking money, and the "stuff" that was his that we need to split down the middle.
She doesn't want to move, which I understand, but the house is too big for her alone and her health is declining and she won't be able to keep it up the way that it needs to be kept. She doesn't want to sell the vehicles, mostly because she thinks that if they are there that everyone will still think that Daddy is there, which is just stupid since everyone in town knew my father or her, so they know he's gone even with the car and truck still in the driveway. She is ok with selling the boats. I think she would be ok with selling the land, but finding a buyer is going to be the hard part. The tools and "stuff" can be pretty easily sold off and what can't be sold off can fairly easily be donated to a trade school or charity. This is not going to be easy and I have to decide how much "fight" to put into this. I personally don't care if I ever live in that town again. I don't know many people that stayed there after graduation. Most of us got out and stayed out because we knew that it was not going to be a place that we would ever be able to call home again.
I have no major love for Lottie. She was good to Daddy, but we had our issues. For the past 12 or so years, I rarely saw my father and it was due to her religious issues with the way that I live my life. She had no problem with my extreme loser ex, but for some reason, she didn't much care for the amazing woman that I am in a relationship with now. My partner is a good person who pays her bills, has always been good to me, and is about the nicest person that you would ever want to meet. I have no idea why Lottie decided that she didn't like her, but she decided to pull some holy roller, "You better get to the Lord." stuff on me and I told Dad that I love him, but I wasn't putting up with that stuff. He understood, but I still feel like she robbed me of my father in those final years. Putting that as much aside as I can, I am trying to figure out what to do about all of this estate stuff without getting lawyers involved, as they would eat through the money quickly and neither of us would emerge with anything in the end. I don't want to just roll over and let her have the entire estate just to keep peace, but then again, I am not sure how much hate, heck, and discontent the money is worth either.
Any insights would be appreciated. I am not sure what my father would feel was the right thing to do in this. He made the choice to not change the beneficiary info on the insurance knowing that I would get the money. He made the choice to write the will the way that he did splitting everything equally. He wrote the will just after Lottie pulled the holy roller stuff, so it wasn't like he didn't know that there were issues there at that time. I wish I had family to run this past, but I don't. With the exception of some distant cousins, I am pretty much alone in this world with the exception of my partner. I trust her judgement, but she doesn't really want to get in the middle of this one, which I understand, but I need some guidance.
I hate feeling lost.
I am my father's only child and I am in my mid-forties. Lottie is in her late 60's and has 3 adult children, who I knew in high school. I was not good friends with any of them back then and since we were all adults when our parents married, we are not close now either. My father earned the lion's share of the money in the relationship. He was retired and had a nice pension, which Lottie will be continuing to draw for quite some time in the future. The house is paid for, as are the car, the truck, the two boats, and the piece of land that only has a well and septic on it at this point. There are 3 life insurance policies. My father never updated the beneficiary information on the first 2 policies that I heard back on so far. The life insurance is set to be paid out to my former stepmother, who is now deceased, or to me as the contingent beneficiary. There is about $75,000 in life insurance that I will be getting as a result of his procrastination, if all three policies turn out to have the same beneficiary information.
The life insurance money is not legally considered to be part of the estate, however, I know that Lottie is going to look at it as being part of the estate. I know that her oldest son will know the difference, but he is going to do everything possible to protect her interest in this, which is understandable since she only has a 7th or 8th grade education and is completely lost without my father. I know that Lottie will not have the liquid assets to buy me out of my half. I do not want to buy her out of her half either, because I don't need a house up there. I don't want the land. I don't need boats. I really don't want the Cadillac or the truck either. To buy me out, we are looking at her needing to have about $80,000 (most likely a lowball estimate) to cover the house, the cars, the boats, the tools, the land, savings & checking money, and the "stuff" that was his that we need to split down the middle.
She doesn't want to move, which I understand, but the house is too big for her alone and her health is declining and she won't be able to keep it up the way that it needs to be kept. She doesn't want to sell the vehicles, mostly because she thinks that if they are there that everyone will still think that Daddy is there, which is just stupid since everyone in town knew my father or her, so they know he's gone even with the car and truck still in the driveway. She is ok with selling the boats. I think she would be ok with selling the land, but finding a buyer is going to be the hard part. The tools and "stuff" can be pretty easily sold off and what can't be sold off can fairly easily be donated to a trade school or charity. This is not going to be easy and I have to decide how much "fight" to put into this. I personally don't care if I ever live in that town again. I don't know many people that stayed there after graduation. Most of us got out and stayed out because we knew that it was not going to be a place that we would ever be able to call home again.
I have no major love for Lottie. She was good to Daddy, but we had our issues. For the past 12 or so years, I rarely saw my father and it was due to her religious issues with the way that I live my life. She had no problem with my extreme loser ex, but for some reason, she didn't much care for the amazing woman that I am in a relationship with now. My partner is a good person who pays her bills, has always been good to me, and is about the nicest person that you would ever want to meet. I have no idea why Lottie decided that she didn't like her, but she decided to pull some holy roller, "You better get to the Lord." stuff on me and I told Dad that I love him, but I wasn't putting up with that stuff. He understood, but I still feel like she robbed me of my father in those final years. Putting that as much aside as I can, I am trying to figure out what to do about all of this estate stuff without getting lawyers involved, as they would eat through the money quickly and neither of us would emerge with anything in the end. I don't want to just roll over and let her have the entire estate just to keep peace, but then again, I am not sure how much hate, heck, and discontent the money is worth either.
Any insights would be appreciated. I am not sure what my father would feel was the right thing to do in this. He made the choice to not change the beneficiary info on the insurance knowing that I would get the money. He made the choice to write the will the way that he did splitting everything equally. He wrote the will just after Lottie pulled the holy roller stuff, so it wasn't like he didn't know that there were issues there at that time. I wish I had family to run this past, but I don't. With the exception of some distant cousins, I am pretty much alone in this world with the exception of my partner. I trust her judgement, but she doesn't really want to get in the middle of this one, which I understand, but I need some guidance.
I hate feeling lost.