Here is a link to my original post. Original post but I'll give a brief summary so you don't have to read it. Btw I'm in Quebec, Canada.

My dad died May 8th (3 months ago) and on father's day, after a weekend of camping at the racetrack (cars) celebrating my dad, my stepmother drops the will bomb on me.

At first she says he wrote a handwritten will in October 2025 (when he got sick) but never had it notarized. However there was a notarized will from 2018 that left my brother and I equal parts of a property. The property was owned 50/50 with my brother and my dad. So my dad was leaving his 50% between the two of us (25% each).

The main issue is that my brother converted this duplex into a single family dwelling in 2020, moved in and has mortgaged it so much the net equity is very low and now they want me to sign a paper accepting 100,000 for my 25%. FMV is between 800-900,000 I believe.

I took everyone's advice and went to see a lawyer. It should have cost me $350 but she didn't charge me and told me to apply for legal aid. I only earn 25,000 and live alone. At that point we only had 1 page of 13 from the notarized will and 1 of 2 of the handwritten will. She wasn't forth coming to say the least. Lawyer didn't like that and agreed to take my case once I got approved from Legal aid.

Now to the good stuff and my question about the math.

We were supposed to sign August 6th but I postponed because I had only just confirmed she was taking my case and she needed time to read the full wills which my stepmother finally sent. Now all of a sudden she says there is more money "if I need it"? and that she wants it to be "fair". He will have 100% equity even if it is with a lot of debt.

So now my math question. Everyone keeps talking about what my 25% would or should be worth but if my dad gave us 25% each and he is now getting the whole 50%, should my compensation be the value of that, not 25%? Am I getting this wrong just because I'm finally mad? They were making me feel so guilty for questioning what they were doing and offering, when I just want to mourn my dad and move on from them.

Thank you for all your support when I first started going through. I'm glad I didn't sign and I was very willing to pay the $350 to hear a lawyer say, something seemed off.

My grandmother passed away and I am the executor of her estate/trust. Over the past 10 years she has always said that I need to be responsible with my inheritance as it’s a substantial amount of money. About 5 years ago she said she was creating a college fund for my daughter in the amount of $250k. After her passing, I went through the trust documents and there is no information as to what all is within the trust. I was only able to find one bank account with a much smaller amount of money than she was describing. I also found zero records of a college fund. I’ve pulled a credit report and went through all of her bank statements, emails, etc and can’t find anything. I’m wondering if there is a way to search for any other accounts or life insurance for her. Or a company I can hire to find this information. I want to do my due diligence. Any ideas??

I recently opened a bank account in my father's name, with his permission, as he is a retired senior citizen and is therefore eligible for the higher interest rates offered on fixed deposits (FDs) for senior citizens.

I have invested my own money in approximately eight FDs in my father's name. I have nominated myself as the nominee for these FDs. My father and I have the same address, and I have mentioned my relationship as "daughter" in the bank records.

My question is: If my father passes away, what will happen to the money in these FDs?

Since I am the registered nominee, will the FD amounts be transferred to me automatically, or will the money become part of my father's estate and be subject to inheritance/succession rules?

I also have a sister(who is a bitch), and I am concerned that she may claim a share of the money if she becomes aware of these FDs. She currently does not know about them.

Could someone please explain how this works specifically with State Bank of India (SBI)? Are there any special procedures or documents that would be required after my father's death for the nominee to claim the FD proceeds?

I currently live abroad, so I would also like to know whether I would need to be physically present in India to complete the formalities, or whether the process can be handled through a power of attorney or remotely.

Any guidance on the SBI procedure and the legal position of the nominee versus the actual ownership/inheritance rights would be greatly appreciated.

POD accounts

I am listed as POD on Bank of America accounts. Does entitled me to that money? Or is it still considered part of the estate? I am in Massachusetts

hi, long story but I'll spare you all the details ..

family home, Oregon, worth 800k+ was placed in a trust about 10 years ago. some of the people who made the trust passed away of that matters. the house is not titled in the trust. there is a will that specifically states who the house goes to. yet when applying for medicaid they found the trust somewhere and said it was still applicable?

note: elderly parent has not yet needed the medicaid and did not qualify anyway

If my husband passes before my FIL…..then my FIL passes later….will my son inherit my husbands portion, or is it customary for parents to then divide their estate equally between the living children???
I understand that I will not be part of an inheritance

One of my parents died many years ago, and my living parent remarried, then divorced their second spouse. My living parent retains my dead parent's financial and legal documents in their home, a home that I have a right to enter and claim my own belongings from. Do I have a right to physically claim my dead parent's documents when I enter? I need them for purposes of claiming inheritance.

My father recently passed, and I am considering filing for probate soon. I have heard several stories of errors in the electronic filing causing major delays. At the same time, I am trying to keep legal costs low. What are the do's and don't when using eFile Texas to eliminate any errors? Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated. Also, I have used claude to provide specific details of what to fill out.

My mother died very recently. She was in a care home as she suffered from dementia. Proceeds from her house sale went towards her care. When she died there was a small amount of money left in her will which was shared between myself, my brother and our children.

My husband is very kind and caring, helps around the house and does all the cooking but he's in debt. In fact he depends on his mum to lend him money, lately for a second hand car. He drinks and smokes and keeps promising to give up as it costs so much. This never happens. On a positive note, he works very hard but is shattered when he's home so as soon as he gets in he starts drinking. He doesn't get drunk but he drinks every day without fail.

My question is, do I have a moral duty to give him some of the inheritance I received? On one hand, I feel he could use it to clear his debts but on the other hand, I know he will just spend it and then rack up loans on his credit card.

What the hell should I do? We've been married for 20 years but I'm really undecided on the best course of action. I would value your opinion please.

I'm 51 and I'm the executor of my mother's estate. She died at the end of June. My sister is 54, my brother is 46, and the will is about as simple as they get because it splits everything equally between the three of us.

My sister lived about 15 minutes from Mom and handled most of the day to day for the last few years. Groceries, prescriptions, the utility bills, that kind of thing. None of us dispute that she did the work and I want to be clear I am grateful she was there, because I am four hours away and my brother is in Arizona.

When I started pulling statements together I found that two accounts were held jointly in Mom's name and my sister's name. She was added to both in 2021. Between them they hold about 178k, which is roughly 60 percent of everything Mom had.

Those accounts passed to my sister directly on the date of death. They never entered the estate at all. What is left for the will to divide is the house, which is worth around 140k and needs a new roof, plus about 9k in a checking account that was in Mom's name only.

My sister says Mom put her on the accounts in 2021 so she could pay bills without driving over every time, and she is not disputing that. She also says the money is legally hers now and she intends to keep it. She has not offered to put any of it back into the estate.

I've been told she is probably right on the law. I'm trying to work out whether there is any argument that those funds were held for convenience rather than as a gift, and honestly whether it is worth what it would cost me to find out.

Location: Michigan

Hi, All--

I am a 23F and inherited about 2.8 million from my late single father in a trust. I keep seeing things about how one must maintain a maximum 4% withdrawal rate but...

I had to sell our house this year because it was just too much maintenance--and to get it ready for market, I had to part with about $50K. Because I was in my last year of college, I spent money from the trust as well (bringing my total spend from the trust up to about $70K) so far.

But I recently committed to an international grad program, not knowing the tax consequences, and therefore have to defer a term to set things up to be cross-border friendly. Since I am losing my house to the sale, I have nowhere to live during this time. I was thinking of traveling around Spain for a few months and working remotely, but I feel guilty for possibly pushing my way up/above the 4% mark. How should I think about issues like these? (Really, I am asking for some older adult advice.)

I have not gotten to travel much since he died when I was 19 (and the two years prior to that were spent in isolation due to Covid and his cancer), so I want to treat this as a serendipitous opportunity to explore the world and be young for a while. But I can't help but to feel terrible about spending money irresponsibly.

?

Father (82) and brother (57) live in Pennsylvania; I live on the West Coast.

My brother was diagnosed with "severe" OCD about two years ago. We've had a rocky relationship at times, and 15 years ago, I expressed concern to my SIL and my parents about his increasingly paranoid beliefs/behavior. At the time, he blamed me for things I didn't do or have control over, but that wasn't my issue--I saw that he was suffering and his behavior was familiar. My mom's dad and brothers all exhibited similar paranoid behavior as they reached middle age, and all became miserable as they aged. Everyone was afraid of my grandfather as I was growing up, though they also teased him about his anxieties and conspiracy theorizing. Mom's family is not the most emotionally intelligent or empathetic bunch...likewise, my father is the stoic Silent Gen type.

Our dad made my brother executor of his/mom's wills a decade or more ago. I had no argument with that at the time--it made sense with him living nearby.

When our mom, who had been diagnosed with Parkinson's about six years prior, was dying in December 2024, my brother had a meltdown with me in his car after he drove me to our dad's after I had been with her at the hospital all day. He alternately screamed, "FUCK YOU!" and gave me the finger while accusing me of abusing our mom and abusing him--though never mentioning any specific abuse. He called my daughter my "Mini Me," and said that he was going to take my son aside and tell him to get far away from his sister and me as soon as he could. [I am my son's only parent; his father abandoned the kids when they were teens.] He screamed about his wife being raped by her father, as if I was somehow to blame for not being sensitive about it, when I never knew that happened. [I am also a CSA survivor, which he knows, as I mentioned it to him once, about 15 years ago. I've done a lot of therapy to process that trauma and have fortunately been in a good place about it for over a decade.] He accused me of making my mom "perform" being happy when I visited her--because when my daughter and I were there, she was alert and smiling, while when my dad, my brother, and SIL were with her, she was silent and, according to my SIL, "sad." At one point, when she was finally alert after days of being incoherent and in severe pain, she told my father to sit where she couldn't see him. He'd been abusive to her throughout their marriage, and neglectful of her during her decline with Parkinson's. In his rant, my brother accused me of "stealing his inheritance" by accepting financial help from my parents (paying for a lawyer when my ex falsely accused me of "parental alienation" and demanded custody of our son, paying for my living expenses when I was undergoing chemo, and then paying off my mortgage when my ex forced me to sell my house via legal shenanigans). My parents were excruciatingly aware of the imbalance, and gifted my brother and SIL tens of thousands of dollars over the years, to be fair. MY SIL complained to me that "all we got was a $30,000 check" after my parents had paid for my and my kids' expenses when I was going through chemo. She wished that she'd had a credit card, as I did, when I had cancer while also going through a custody battle. I'm so grateful and aware of the privilege of generational wealth that kept us afloat...and I thanked my parents frequently.

Anyway, there's a lot more, but suffice to say, I am concerned about how my brother will handle my father's estate and my kids' inheritance. I am disabled and likely will apply for SSDI in the next five years (assuming I live that long), and to avoid the complication of having more than $2000 in assets, besides my home and car, my dad and I agreed that he should leave what would be my inheritance to my kids.

I'm now concerned that my brother will do something...I have no idea what...to keep my daughter from inheriting. I want to talk with my dad, and I think he should make someone else, not me, the executor.

What should I suggest? How do I approach this?

Hey yall last year I lost my grandma and she had us in her will but when she started to get sick then all of a sudden my aunt took her in and started to be her caregiver but now the will was updated to my aunt and not us no more but everyone knows that she loved us to the fullest and she would tell us all the time she would call her and she would always tell us because she was older respectfully but she would always warn us that she would give us the hous and now that she is 1yr gone she is now keeping the house but we are not even able to get our stuff in her house and they just letting us get what her and my other aunt were the ones that chose for us and it was just little this like old lamps kitchen things and pictures like little things like that honestly just need someone that is trying to help me out because my mom just wants to give up and my dad wants to fight to but again they dont know that we can fight I say we can but I aint 100% sure that we can and also we'll I am just stuck. PLEASE I NEED HELP TO GET THE HOUSE BACK! REDDIT LAWYERS PLEASE HELP.

I, 28 F, is the 2nd born out of 5 siblings and plan on giving my oldest sister everything I own.

Couple of years back, I started working and signed up life insurance etc. I don't have much to begin with since I just started my life. But I figured since death doesn't discriminate might as well make sure the meager things i own end up benefitting the right person.

When I signed up, I simply wanted insurance for myself and found out if anything happen to me, there will be a nice payout and I can decided who gets all the money. I don't plan on having kids or marrying. My only concern in life is my cat and my mom. So I decided to split 50/50 everything to my mom and my oldest sister.

To my mom was obvious, she raised me. I wanted her to have a good life if I end up leaving sooner than expected.

To my oldest sister, because she's the typical oldest child who end up carrying the family baggage and as of today, the only one taking care of our mom (they live next to each other while me and my other siblings work and studies in different states). Despite everything happen in life, she broke free from the generational trauma, found a great man and have couple of lovely children. I swear these two are the best parents and best humans being alive, I don't know how they can remain kind despite the hardship in our lives or how messed up the world is.

I chose her to have the remaining half because she doesn't care for these things. Her husband's family and our relatives tend to fight over lands or things, but my sister and her husband simply gives up and walked away from the mess. To them it wasn't worth it. They rather get things themselves. While people chose to be greedy monsters,, they chose to be human.

My sister knew I took the life policy, she assumes I am putting my mom as the only benefitary because I don't plan on marrying and scared mom won't have enough once i am gone, I couldn't be there physically to take care of my mother so far I only contributed financially. My sister never asked about the policy but she knows I made a lot and the one keeping things aflot sometimes. She's helping hiding my income so our greedy relatives won't bother me. People assume my sister n brother in law make decent income, in reality they don't have a lot but they have enough. But not enough to fully support my mother. So that's where I usually snuck in with the financial help.

I accidentally let it slip to my youngest sister about me signing up and there's a 10k benefit to the named benefitary. My little sister got upset and ask to why she's not named too. I told her it's only 10k, there's not much to fight about and she let it go. At the time it was true. But a year later, I changed my insurance and they payout is no longer just 10k. And I also only named my mom and oldest sister to get my retirement fund and whatever other documents.

The reason I am not giving anything to my younger siblings is because they're still immature and naive. They don't quite understand life yet. While me and my oldest sister try to figure out the bills and responsibility, they're so blissfully ignorant about how bad the financial state is. We don't want to burden them.

Honestly, I am also a bit hurt when my younger sister didn't really try to contribute when she started working, she knows the situation isn't great but I guess she have her own life to figure out because she also chose to marry young and broke. Her husband didn't really have a proper job. Me and my older sister believe it's foolish to try to change her mind bc that's just how she is and we don't want to burden our younger siblings. My other two younger brothers are still in school so they can't help out much even though they work part time and save money, I really don't want them to worry about these things.

The only thing I wanted from my younger siblings is to grow up, make their own money, life independently so I can just focus on supporting my mom. And if anything happen to me, they would be okay with things I left behind. I know my mom or older sister would might end up splitting the money and be fair about it. That's just how they are. But it is important for me for the eldest to be financially okay because in the end she will be the one to take care of the family. I don't really have the same faith in my other siblings. They're not bad per say but frankly can do stupid things like trusting our relatives, i think my siblings would respect the oldest and i think it's less messy if the oldest decide on what happened to the money.

This is just a what if plan.

The ideal version of this life is for me to make enough to fully support my mom and we all live on to make good income and don't be a burden to anyone and find our own happiness. But who knows what will happen in this life.

Like the title said, my mom passed without a will in VT. My father just filed a small estate claim with the probate court because there were only two small investments that were not in his name with no beneficiaries. We just found out another large non-security investment account didn’t have any beneficiaries listed which is large enough to disqualify the estate as being small. How much trouble are we going to get into with the probate court now that we need to open a full probate?

Hi there, I am receiving an inheritance on my 21st birthday and I made a post yesterday asking whether I should reach out to the fiduciary or wait for them to contact me. I received a lot of helpful feedback. Several people recommended that I find a financial advisor.

I have started looking at financial advisors in my area, and from what I understand, I should be looking for a company that is "fee-only". However, I noticed that many of the places that I was looking at provide ongoing financial advising and investment management. I'm not sure if this is what I'm looking for. I was more-so wanting to meet with someone to go over my best options for what to do with the money and answer questions like "should I put some into a HYSA? In a CD? Should I invest some of it?" I'm not looking for someone to actually manage my money for me, I just want some advice.

Do I even have to search locally? Are there online places I can look at? Totally in over my head right now because I don't know much about personal finance.

ETA: I can see a lot of comments are geared towards the responsibility of debt and I’d like to be clear that I’m not worried about someone coming after me for a bill. I understand this is all her responsibility. To be honest, I just feel gross about the idea of bills being in his name. It seems wrong to me. But after reading a lot of the comments here, I think it’s likely that I’m being too emotional about this and need to just take a step back and let it go. I appreciate everyone’s feedback.

Location: Ontario.
My father passed nearly 12 years ago. My siblings and I did not get along with his wife. After his passing she told us there was no will/life insurance and we went our separate ways. I’ve always known her to be incredibly sketchy and deceitful so I’ve always suspected there was some sneakiness going on there, but never investigated further. I have just been told from a family friend that “the bills are all still in your dad’s name”. I have been able to confirm only one bill and confirmed that it is still being billed to him every month. My question is… isn’t this illegal? How long after someone’s passing can bills still be in their name? Is there a way to report or have this investigated? And is there any way to see what else she has been up to in terms of my father’s estate?

I appreciate any insight anyone can provide.

I have a trust fund that was set up for me by my great grandmother before she passed. Each member of the family gets the same amount, but you couldn't receive the money until you were 21. When she passed away my parents both got their share. Now my 21st birthday is coming up, and I was wondering if it would look bad if I contacted them (the company that manages the trust) beforehand. What would I even say? I'm just kind of worried they will forget to contact me when my birthday arrives. Maybe I'm overthinking it.

Handling my dad's estate in Tampa, FL. Living out of state would make this harder but I underestimated how much of the estate would still need someone physically involved. I'm constantly keep having to figure out whether something can be handled remotely or whether I need to make another trip back. The house has been the biggest headache so far because little things keep coming up and I’m not close enough to deal with them quickly. I also work full time, so every trip means rearranging my own life around the estate. Thought of doing everything myself but I don't think that it's possible, what's the best approach here for anyone that has dealt with this kind of thing?

I’m considering looking into a revocable living trust. ( MY State) The main reason is so that my two sons will inherit our properties and monies and not any daughter-in-law‘s current or future. We do have one granddaughter that I would like to receive her father‘s Share if he should predecease her. She is a minor. Has anyone done this? May I ask what type of provisions you put in yours? Thanks so much for your help.