I am executor of my friend's estate. He is like a father to me and I have cared for him and helped him for years but we are not blood related. Anyway, my friend's adult son is almost in his 40's and still lives with his dad and does not work or help with anything. My friend does have a will naming me as executor and his son as one of the beneficiaries. He does not have much money and we will be lucky if the equity from the sell of his house covers his final expenses. I will be out of pocket these expenses until the house is sold and I can get reimbursed.
I am worried that the son will drag this out. Not move out of the house, etc. I know there are ways to fight this in court but is there a clause that my friend can include in his will to give a deadline for his son to move out and for the house to be on the market? Or anything similar that will provide clarification and a timeline?
When my step dad was getting close to the end, I did research, as the executor, into what different companies charge for cremation. I found one who did it for less than $700.00. I had to fill out papers online and the arrangements ahead of time. No meeting in person to be pressured to upgrade to fancy, unnecessary options. When he passed away, the man who came to take his body from the NH could not have been more professional. He came dressed in a nice suit, brought a flag because dad was a veteran, draped his body, and they wheeled him out very carefully & respectfully. I just went to their place of business to pick up his ashes 3 weeks later. This did not cost thousands of dollars. I will do the same thing when my mother passes away. The biggest difference I could see was not getting the ashes back within a week.
At the time you assume your role, after his death, you will probably have to file appropriate eviction forms in your county if he does not vacate by date you give him in writing - so you can sell the house. I see no reason your friend can't add an amendment to his will that clearly states, house must be vacated withing XX number of days after my death so it can be sold and proceeds distributed according to division discussed in my will. That would make it clear to everyone involved and give you a little bite if you have to evict. Since there is very little equity in the home - not paying the house payment between vacate and selling is going to eat into distributions funds as well. If son drags it out - he loses the house anyway and there won't be any equity to pocket.
The time to get the issue sorted out is now. Are your friend and his son on good terms?
I have seen Wills that allow someone to live in the family home for a period of time after the death. Mum's Will used to say that my step dad could live in her house for 12 months after her death. He has since predeceased her and she has updated her Will.
If the son is capable let it be him. You can decline to
serve. Do not advance money to the estate when the
house must be sold to be re imbursed. In my state there
is no good provision for putting a beneficiciary out of his
inherited house. I have several pending right now and
both have held up sales for a year. Eviction court will not
order them out of their own home. Their failure to pay taxes may take 3 years to be ordered out. Probate court
does not seem to have the power. The only way is to file a Sales case or sometimes a partition suit which is more expense and takes time. Based on what I have been thru in the last 45 years, I would decline and walk
away. You are entitled to an Executor's fee - but it is taxable income to you.
'It is my wish that my daughter, _____, be reimbursed for any expenses she may incur relating to my estate, included but not limited to travel and accommodation expenses should any such expenses exceed executors expenses to which she is entitled.'
You see, I live in the US and Dad was in Canada (obviously during Covid the cost of quarantining in order to visit him was very expensive) He was also not a man of means. At 93 much of the estate had already gone to paying his and my mom's expenses so he wanted to make sure I didn't have to rely on the decency of brother's that lived 2 hours away and didn't visit for the last 18 months of his life.
Hope this is helpful
What seems to happen is that the elders home is titled into the Trust and nothing else is and elder uses their monthly income (like Social Security $ or a pension) or savings to pay for costs of asset (the house) titled into the Trust. So elder takes $ from her savings account for new roof; writes a check from personal checking account in January for property taxes, ditto for homeowners insurance, utilities, etc. It’s exactly what mom was doing before the Trust and she just continues doing it. Goes on for years just fine. Then mom dies & mom’s monthly income die as well.
A Trust like this can find itself with no $ of its own to pay costs of assets owned by & titled to the Trust. A Trust can defund (same scenario can happen w Life Estates). Normally ”Trusts” have real $$$, 800K/1M tends to be the floor for doing a Trust as there's going to be investments churning away in the Trust overseen by a financial advisor; and they do a planned defund when the times comes. A home as the only thing in the Trust will become sticky to deal with.
To keep this from happening, there needs to be something(s) titled into Trust that makes $. That provides for income to feed the costs of assets owned by the Trust. Like investments or stocks owned by it and dividends paid into it. Does not have to be the 800k/1M range but a bank account that for sure will have 10-20k POD to the Trust. Or have a fully paid life insurance policy with the Trust as the only beneficiary. All so that Trust has $ to pay taxes, insurance, maintenance, whatevers on that house for a year or two till house gets eventually sold.
Once elder dies the property taxes will likely increase significantly. Could triple. Homeowners insurance canceled as homeowner dead, so vacant dwelling policy needed or investment / rental property insurance. Insurance will be lots more. Try to figure out what house will cost for 1-2 yrs after death and have at least that much $ as an asset of the Trust.
Imo you especially want to make sure property taxes are paid. There is a whole cottage industry of folks who specifically bid on Trusts and Life Estates property tax delinquency. They are not about bidding on parcels for the hefty interest paid but are focused on redemption of the tax sale lien.
All your costs should be covered by the estate.
Worst case scenario after your friend passes. Get in a realtor that makes and gives a check on the spot. He will tell the son when he needs to move out.
So Midkid, you husband is entitled to a % of the estate. And he should take it. If it were me though and I was not a beneficiary as a child, I would not be Executor. Husband could turn it down and let Probate assign someone else.
He is so honest and wanted his YS and OB to see that he was handling this all with complete transparency--and he did, to the dime!
Yet--BIL had to have his nose in EVERYTHING and asked for a weekly accounting. AS executor, DH was entitled to $25 per hour for all the time he spent chasing the rabbits, so to speak. BIL blew a gasket and wouldn't 'let' DH (or me, as I was cleaning and 'flipping' dad's condo) have a cent for our time. Yet he sold both a rental property and his condo, took his 3% fee and nothing was said.
Both Dh and I worked our tails off to make sure that YS and BIL were 'happy'. They weren't. and to this DAY (18 years later!!) BIL will still ask questions about where 'this and such' went. It pretty much ruined my good feelings for my BIL. I do not trust him, nor like him much, he was so grasping and ungrateful.
I would recuse myself from your situation. Yes, you stand to inherit (sounds like that's a big 'maybe', actually) and trust me, this could get very ugly, very fast.
Dh is also executor of his mother's estate, but I have been told we have been written out of said will--so DH will once again work himself to a frazzle, but this time he will not stand to inherit a nickel. It will be the same--BIL will be hanging over our shoulders the whole time and we'll wind up with zero respect for him. AND no relationship at all.
Perhaps you could resign and not have the worry of how fast the house will sell after he dies, since your not a beneficiary of it your not locked in to staying on as executor
OP is worried that the soon will hold up the sell of the house. The sell of the house will pay for funeral expenses and any debts still owed. OP is not making a profit here.
All current expenses (mortgage, taxes, utilities, etc) should be paid through the father and son's existing assets. Regardless of your fears, it's the father's wishes that prevail. I suggest you have an open and honest discussion with father and son to clarify his wishes after he passes. In my opinion, no loving father will put his son out of the house he lived in if it can be avoided and as long as his son can continue to pay the expenses.
Whether or not Sonny has $ to pay, does not matter imo.
Sonny has to choose to pay on things owned by his dad & if he doesn’t, it is what it is.
The only way around this is if Sonny is disabled in some way so that there is a conservatorship or guardianship over him and they control the $ and pay for things on Sonny’s behalf.
If Sonny is a layabout leech, you can’t force him to pay or change.
Sounds great, problem is this is not realistic.
If there is no $, no reliable income via an asset owned by & within the Estate (in probate) for the Executor to draw from, then it’s going to fall to Executor to pay estates expenses until house sells. Hopefully the house sells for way beyond all the claims against the estate and all property costs and Act of Sale / Realtor costs so that the Executor is able to get a fee. But no guarantee 2 happen.
Utilities fully expect to be paid, if not, they will be shut off.
Tax collector expects to get paid, if not, property goes delinquent w/significant interest & possibly up for annual tax sale.
Insurance needs to be paid, if not, house becomes uninsured.
Should a fire happen, & it’s uninsured, the beneficiaries -as per will- can seek restitution from Executor for loss of anticipated inheritance (their % distribution), basically Heirs sue Executor.
For more fun in this, there seems to b heirs / beneficiaries beyond the son. If others are themselves expecting $$$ inheritance, OP will have to deal with all their noise & nonsense as well.
The OP (Saunders) already knows their friend has debt, has a home w/little equity and has a son living in the home who does NOT contribute financially and does NOT work. & OP has the vibe that the son likely to be difficult to move out of the home & not all kumbaya on them being the Executor.
OP cannot ask an elder law attorney to draw up or do anything.
It would HAVE TO be the old man who asks for this to be done and the old fellow has to be willing to sit at attorney office on his own & without prodding by OP to do any changes to his POA or his will. Ditto for old man’s banking or life insurance beneficiaries. If old man won’t, there is nothing absolutely nothing the OP can do about it. The only thing Saunders has control over is the ability to decline to be the Executor (or resign as a POA). Even if Saunders tell the old man now that he will not serve as Executor, the old man can still leave it written in his will that Saunders is his choice as Executor. OP can’t force a codicil to the will, or make Sonny pay for anything now or after his dad dies.
Situation is a tar baby, & you don’t want to be Br’ er Rabbit.
Your father figure friend should step up to help his own son if it’s the last thing he can do. That’s what a responsible father should do. If the son is really disabled, your friend should try to get the son in some government programs to receive help so he won’t be out on the cold street once his father goes to warm heaven. If he’s just lazy and never learns to stand on his own feet which means your friend has enabled his son all his life, then it’s time to use tough love approach to help him.
What your friend wants to do now is dumping the consequences of his parental failures on your lap to deal with after he’s gone. He has abdicated his responsibility as a parent.
If you want to help, then help him help his son to be on his own now.
Taking on the responsibility for his will is a really bad idea. Don’t do it.
If its just lazyness than I guess it doesn't bother ur friend his son will be homeless? Thats OK, he probably has tried to help son and not got anywhere with him. But you probably will have a hard time getting him to leave the house. Sounds like he couldn't keep it up anyway. Your friend may want to have his lawyer go over the Will and see if there is a way to make sure the house is sold and son needs to leave it.
I hope you realize that as Executor you do not spend your own money. Thats not how it works. Does ur friend not have an insurance policy? When my Mom passed, I did pay some out of pocket only because the house was up for sale. I unplugged all the appliances. Had a timer to turn on and off a lamp I had in the living room. I had the lawn man only mow when neccessary. I turned down the heat to 55°. I did not pay taxes or the water/sewage bill. (the water will be shut off eventually). The house did sell, not for much, and covered the tax lean and water bill. I did get my out of pocket back.
BUT
what I’d be concerned about is if doing a codicils will actually start a hornets nest from the layabout son as to his not liking your involvement in his dads life now and in his life in the future as your the Executor.
SO….. personally I wouldn’t change anything; I’d leave it all exactly as the will states and then go Alva’s route and decline the appointment of you as executor. You do NOT have to be Executor.
If the old fellow knows Sonny is beyond problematic, that you’ve agreed to be his Executor, this probably gives him a real sense of relief & calm. He doesn’t need to know that you’ll decline it when that eventuality happens. That you right now in 2021 know that there’s nothing but debts, no preneed done and house that will likely be a difficult sale due to Sonny’s presence and (I’ll bet) decades of delayed maintenance, is really really beyond fortunate.
There have been countless posts of this site from a family member or family friend who were named Executor in a Will, & they go ahead and do it… they hire a probate attorney, get Letters Testamentary naming them & deal with banking changes, etc…. and quickly find out that it’s all negative, all debts & thier getting the debt collector calls, the house has major repairs that Realtors want done to make it “market ready”, that the neighbors who were ok on the house while the elder was alive now are free to vent about all the crap at the house and your getting those calls….
You already know “Someone” aka you is going to need to front $ to get things started. Cremation 3k, probate atty 3-8k, property costs (taxes, insurance, utilities) for at least a year as Sonny probably doesn’t pay a penny. Unless the elder has a life insurance policy naming you sole beneficiary &/or a bank account POD to you, that combined around 10k, it going to be on all you as Executor to cover & front all $, & hopefully house sells asap (& for beyond all tally of debts); you settle debts of the Estate, you are able to be reimbursed and paid an Executor fee and the balance distributed to the beneficiaries. Lots of your $ & time.
So you decline to be named. The Son probably will be appointed by the court to be “Dependent Administrator” of his dads estate. So all actions are court supervised. If there other kids from either the dad or the moms marriages, court will probably want a lineal heirship done to establish heirs and 1 of them becomes the Dependent Administrator. Your not blood so entirely out of this process. There are ways for probate court to deal with all this. And lots of states have timeframes on by when dates for probate to open & close out.
If your still waffling on all this, if he has at all been on any Medicaid programs since he was 55, even community based ones, Medicaid (MERP) is required to attempt a recoup of their costs paid from his Estate. And if he is at all delinquent on property taxes, it will have gone up for annual tax sale & possibly tax sale redemption. Both can be dealt with but a maze of paperwork. Often folks have no idea these are lurking in the background on settling an Estate.
You might consider speaking with your friend NOW about your concerns, and explaining why you do not wish to serve. Why not tell him to appoint this son who he apparently likes well enough to have in his home and who realistically is now or will be his caregiver.
And obviously don't mention this concern in front of the son, as it would give him grounds (in his own mind) to challenge you, either personally or legally.
Do this "by the book."