<p>I am trying to be cryptic here to remain anonymous but I will hopefully provide the facts as needed. I am the executor of my mother’s “estate”. Really the only thing I have authority over is one bank account. Prior to her death my mom was unable to go home for a period of 6 months that she moved between hospitals and skilled nursing so that she was in and out of about 7 facilities. She had very good insurance so no large medical bills are expected. In spite of this I am feeling like it is important to keep this account intact until it seems that all her bills have been paid. I have no idea how long that period will be. I am being pressured by a sibling to disburse funds immediately. I agreed to release some money provided they gave me a signed note that stated they would reimburse the funds within a specified time frame if they were needed to pay off my mother’s bills. They agreed to do this but not unconditionally and had a list of things that they felt needed to happen before the funds were returned and that they would not return funds if their specified steps weren’t followed. At this point we are at a stalemate and an unpleasant situation is developing between us at a time that we should be pulling together. </p>
<p>I would like to end the unpleasantness but not at the risk of possibly having to pay bills with my own funds or without having to fight them for the money. I am wondering if anyone has been through this and has been able to solve it amicably. I am also trying to figure out how much to hold onto and for how long. I have been advised of anything from 3 months to 5 years with no real guidance at all with regard to amount. I think my sibling’s concern is that I won’t take every step that they would take to prevent and refute fraudulent charges and have basically outlined steps that I must follow if they will pay back the funds. I believe I will do my best and deal with situations appropriately if they arise and that it is my job as executor to make these decisions and come up with the plan as it fits the particular situation. I therefore don’t feel that I can make any promises to go with their payback statement. I also feel like their preventative measures are over kill. While they feel like the amount I am holding onto is over kill. Presently there is no legal counsel involved and if possible I would like to keep it that way.</p>
<p>So to summarize:
1-Do you have any suggestions for an amicable solution?
2-Are there any guidelines for how much and how long funds should be held?
3-Do you have any thoughts regarding what should be done to avoid fraudulent charges or to refute them?</p>
<p>Thank you for any thoughts or insight that you can provide.</p>
<p>Disbursing funds at this point is a mistake. As someone who assisted some friends who were in the same positions you are in, first rule of thumb is to NEVER disburse estate funds until all estate debts/expenses/taxes are paid off and over with. </p>
<p>You never want to be placed in a position where as executor you’ll end up having to use your own personal funds to repay estate expenses and chasing down those relatives to return those prematurely disbursed funds. </p>
<p>Why set yourself up for future potential hassles…especially when those family members are already giving strong indications they may have issues paying those funds back if they are needed to pay off unanticipated/currently unknown estate expenses/debts/taxes? </p>
<p>This sort of BS family pressure is precisely why being an executor of a family member’s estate is a major responsibility to never be taken lightly…and one which requires much backbone/fortitude to fend off unreasonable/pushy demands from family members, estate creditors, and the like.</p>
<p>While one does need to be mindful of tact when dealing with family, your primary responsibility is to ensure your mother’s estate’s debts/expenses are paid off and any remaining money is disbursed/used according to your mother’s wishes. Everything else is secondary.</p>
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<p>If anything involves a disbursal of money, insist they sign an agreement as to conditions of receiving the funds and repayment conditions if needed/relevant and keep copies. If they balk or insist on conditions of their own…refuse. </p>
<p>Get everything in writing and make sure you consult your estate’s attorney who should be assisting you.</p>
<p>I think you are right to leave the funds in the account until everything gets settled out. In your position, I would probably start a file/spreadsheet with every entity (hospitals, nursing homes, etc.) that you know are involved and begin tracking the situation. Generally, they will be billing your mother’s insurance. You should make sure you are getting statements of what the insurance co is paying and/or rejecting. </p>
<p>If there is anything regarding her possessions, housing, landlords, utilities, etc. keep track of that too. Are there unresolved expenses associated with the funeral/burial? Dig around to see if there are any skeletons which are going to pop up now. In general, most of this stuff should resolve itself in around 6 months. </p>
<p>Stall the sibling(s) at least that long. Longer if they persist in being difficult.</p>
<p>Condolences on the loss of your mother.</p>
<p>ETA: The IRS caught up with me YEARS after my mother died because we were supposed to file a return for the year she died even though she had no (taxable) income at that time. (My lawyer never mentioned this btw.) They wanted me to pay arms and legs, so I had to get H and R to do a return for her. Make sure you get ALL the bases covered.</p>
<p>Condolences on your loss. It is hard to be the executor, as there is always lots of free advice with no clear path. I would tell your sibling that you aren’t going to do anything at all with the estate, apart from paying bona fide bills and expenses, for the next 6 months. Tell them that’s the most sensible legal advice you have been given, you know it is hard, you know that it’s inconvenient. When they bs about “now”, say you are so sorry, but this is what you decided and you’ll get together in February to see where everyone is. And then keep saying it. Or say you would really like to stop talking about it until then, thank you very much. Firm, but empathetic. (Roll your eyes and swear in the privacy of your own head!) I would not at all give anything to anyone until you are very sure of what is “left”. </p>
<p>My folks have a detailed notebook with directions like these, God bless them. And will leave the vast majority of their estate to charity, and a little to their grandchildren, completely bypassing their children. We breathed a sigh of relief!</p>
<p>You’d be surprised how long some of this can take. One friend’s matter dragged on more than a year after the funeral and disputes with siblings were done and settled.</p>
<p>Just say No. Cobrat is on target and Sylvan and green are right about keeping detailed records, to prevent anyone contesting.</p>
<p>In my state, the expectation is based on a reasonable period to collect/identify debts. There is note of one year, but also note that nothing holds anyone to that.</p>
<p>Agree, blame it on legal or financial advice or a banker, etc, if you must. Medical transport bills can come in late, some misc doctor you didn’t realize treated her can bill late (or who isn’t fully reimbursed by insurance and may come back to you,) etc. And, this sort of thing can snowball. it’s one thing to reimburse someone’s transportation to a service, another to be swayed.</p>
<p>As for fraudulent, you have the right to question anything. As someone recently told me, the deceased no longer has a credit rating. You want to pay, you intend to, but you have a right to verify.</p>
<p>Where I did have a hiccup for my grandmother, was when medical billing had not properly collected or recorded payments from insurance or Medicare. But I found everyone willing to explain, recheck, reprocess. it’s in their interests. Good luck and sorry.</p>
<p>I just finished handling my mother-in-law’s estate (my husband was the executor and it was pretty simple divide everything evenly between two siblings). It takes a lot of time to do things properly (she died in September and we just finished up now in July). As stated above you can not disburse any funds until all debts are paid and even then you need to account for taxes for the following year. Remember a complete estate includes everything - you need to account for the little things (like in my case selling unwanted jewelry to get money for the gold.) You will continue receiving medical bills for months after the death (hospitals are very slow on this stuff). All of the financial people I dealt with (there were accounts in a few different places) all cautioned against giving out any money until everything was completed they also said once there are more than three heirs it gets ugly. A friend had a hard time dealing with a lord and taylor credit card dispute months after her mother’s death - so you can never tell where an issue might be. My advice is to tell them you are the executor - you want to do things properly and you will let them know when all is completed what the final amount is and disperse it at that time (in 2014)</p>
<p>Yes, six months seems very short, especially where there are healthcare bills involved. I am a personal rep for an estate that has been open for eight years (!!!). I just got off the phone with the attorney from discussing the final steps for our formal closing and final tax returns. Our attorney has been adamant that we need to keep enough money in the bank account for final payments of bills, etc. Under no circumstances would he want us to distribute if we thought there were outstanding bills to pay. You are the PR, and you have the authority to withhold this payment.</p>
<p>That said, I agree that you need to start a spreadsheet of all the possible creditors and confirm what is owed. Also… sometimes you do not have to pay bills after the person died, even from their estate. If you don’t have an estate attorney advising you on this, you really should have one. You need to confirm what each creditor bases their claim on (what are they billing for? Is it accurate?) and I asked the attorney about each bill and whether I should pay it or not (batched 'em up and emailed him the list about once a month to keep the cost down).</p>
<p>I would not even tell them what year you will disburse in, honestly… You have to have tough skin sometimes to be the PR, but you have a fiduciary responsibility. Don’t cave in to relatives on this.</p>
<p>One reason why I was asked to assist in such matters by friends was precisely to serve as the “bad guy” they could have their pushy/jerky relatives pin the blame on. </p>
<p>This is one case where being a hardnosed ENTJ sure comes in handy. :D</p>
<p>You are getting good advise here. Stand firm and do not disperse any money. I am really sorry that your siblings do not understand how this works. They come after the creditors.</p>
<p>Can you hire an attorney and make him or her the bad guy? Estate law is very complicated and you want to be sure that you’re doing everything correctly from the start.</p>
<p>I’m going through this now with my MIL’s estate although there are no disagreements between DH and his brother about how the funds should be dispersed. I’m doing all the paperwork in order to save attorney fees. Their mother’s attorney is reviewing everything and making sure it’s done correctly. Nothing is getting dispersed from the estate account without a signed Receipt and Refunding Agreement (may be called something else in your state) from the person receiving the money. This says in part</p>
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<p>If the bank account was in your mother’s name only, then on her death it will be frozen and a new estate account must be set up with its own EIN obtained from the IRS. If your name is on the account too then you don’t need an estate account.</p>
<p>I’d stress to the sibling that you’re trying to follow the letter of the law and need to retain the funds in order to pay off any legitimate claims against the estate. </p>
<p>What about creating a shared Google spreadsheet with the expenses that you know about listed?</p>
<p>Our attorney is saying that the usual timeframe for probate is 8-10 months, but this is for a fairly simple estate.</p>
<p>(crossed posted with lots of people going through the same thing)</p>
<p>This is selling the responsibility short. You may only have access to money from this, but if you are executor then you are going to be handling bills/billing disputes as noted above, filling a tax return for 2013, getting copies of death certificates and sending them to appropriate places, etc. In some instances, executors are granted a percentage of estate in recognition of the actual time it takes. Don’t let your family give you a hard time and don’t feel guilty if you have to make them wait - you are fulfilling your duties. Sorry this is adding to an already stressful time.</p>
<p>you are the executor, you call the shots. Maybe you were chosen because someone knew you would do things correctly and not rush. Tell your sibling funds will be disbursed when you are confident all bills have been paid, however long that takes.</p>
<p>In some cases, executors are also entitled to be reimbursed for all reasonable expenses associated with conducting estate business on top of that percentage/executor pay. Check with your estate attorney on this as it may vary by jurisdiction.</p>
<p>It seems to me that someone who is pressuring you to disburse the money sooner rather than later needs the money and it will soon be spent. If down the road the outstanding bills turn out to be more than you thought I don’t think they’ll return the money, I don’t think they will even have it anymore.</p>
<p>Your job isn’t to make everyone happy, it is to execute the terms of you mother’s estate. If someone gets mad when that is all you were trying to do well, then like I said, they really needed the money but that isn’t your fault.</p>
<p>You can always tell your siblings that you will resign as executor and suggest one of them take over the responsibility if a court would so order their appointment. Of course, you could rsign and the court could appoint an independent party in which case, there will be legal fees that cut into the bounty.</p>
<p>* I think my sibling’s concern is that I won’t take every step that they would take to prevent and refute fraudulent charges and have basically outlined steps that I must follow if they will pay back the funds.*</p>
<p>Valid, but considering they want money now and are making the payback, (if needed,) conditional on this, I find it a bit obsessive. I will say that we had no false billing re my grandmother or MIL. There were few points where I needed to place a call and ask, eg, who was this doc, what was the service, but there were answers.</p>
<p>You will quickly learn (maybe you have) what sorts of charges leave what sorts of balances. If there is a mistake, say a double billing, you just tackle that. I had good support from medical, insurance, Medicare and Social Security. When one charge was reprocessed, the bill for the balance came to us later, but good record keeping will keep you on top of that.</p>
<p>I agree about taxes. If something becomes complex and you need an extension, add the late charges. One thing an attorney is helping me with now is my own perspective, what steps take what time, what’s not to worry about, what I should let him handle. You may ask around and see who has a rec, what the charges are. Not always as bad as the random anecdote will claim.</p>
<p>Very trite and crass but think of it this way–should your relative have died sooner to pay other’s bills? Of course not! Just because someone wants money immediately is not a reason to disburse money early. Their problems are NOT yours.
It’s done when it’s done and it can take some time. Just do your job. There is probably a good reason you were named executor.
Blame it on whomever you need to smooth things over (lawyers, banks, the garbage man). Just know that giving in is probably the last thing you want to do unless you really trust your siblings.</p>
<p>I really disagree with this. The siblings have no fiduciary responsibility in this, and the personal rep does not owe them a list of every transaction along the way. It is possible that in the final accounting this will be presented, but I think it is between the personal rep and their attorney to track and resolve all outstanding bills. Unless the sibling has some personal knowledge of a bill that the personal rep does not have, I would NOT be going over the list of bills and creditors with them as the work goes along on the estate.</p>
<p>Don’t think you have mentioned an attorney, but I personally have found our estate attorneys to be invaluable in the process. There is a lot of complexity and nuance in estate law, and you can get in trouble as a PR if you don’t follow it.</p>
<p>We are actually paid an hourly rate from the estate I am working on. The rate is quite low, though, and I remember that we had a hard time pinning our attorney down on how much we should charge. But my sibling who is my co-personal rep and I have both put in over 1,000 hours on the estate… The estate also covers expenses (travel, postage, copying, legal, phone, etc.) related to our PR duties.</p>