<p>What the kids were eligible for is irrelevant at this point and to this discussion. To me, the big issue is how much of a fuss BIL and sis want to make over this and what each will do to help make things work out and preserve family harmony as well as possible. It would be shame to allow a squabble over money to permanently marr the family relationship. Still, I would stay out of it and let BIL & sis work things out. It just seems more prudent.</p>
<p>I think there are 2 issues: the legal thing to do and the right thing to do. It sounds like late MIL had a significant sum of of money of there are several sibs getting large cash distributions. It sounds like sister’s share covers her outstanding loan balance to brother with money left over. Any money she gets is money she didn’t haver before. I guess I don’t understand why she wouldn’t want to pay off the large loan to her brother. To be perfectly honest, it sounds a little ungrateful, especially since he is now in a bit of a financial bind. He was kind enough to help her when she needed it. It seems only decent to return the favor. To do otherwise seems a bit mean spirited to me.</p>
<p>Having been the executor of an estate, its a thankless job. Its time consuming to handle it all, pay off any outstanding debt ( doctor bills and other bills that occur at end of life) and this requires going through insurance EOBs before paying the bills to be sure the payment is accurate, handling the decedents taxes and estate taxes, closing accounts, selling things like cars, returning the tags, canceling insurance (if the decedent had a car, for example)… I could go on and on, but there is a lot to do and yes the executor has a fiduciary responsibility to handle it accurately. But these are siblings and there is another aspect to maintaining this relationship. Even though its apples and oranges, and mixing distribution of sisters share of moms money with sister’s loan is officially incorrect, I can understand why it feels uncomfortable to pay someone money who owes you a considerable sum of money. Why wouldnt she want to discharge the loan to her brother? It seems like the right/nice thing to do, and since he was nice to loan her money, why wouldnt she want to do the same in return? Only reason I can think is if he gave her a very very low or no interest loan,and she has other loans with higher interest rates she wants to pay first. If so,to be honest, it means to me that brother was kind enough to give that kind of low interest loan, and really, she should return the favor. JMO. Been there, done that.</p>
<p>As an aside, getting lawyers involved to freeze the assets is going to waste money. He will have to hire an attorney to respond (it shouldnt be his wife) and he may possibly have the right to pay those attorney fees out of the estate, which effects what the rest of the sibs will get as it comes out of the whole estate and hence affects their share. And it tie it up til its resolved, which means no one gets their distribution 'til its settled. That will annoy all the sibs.</p>
<p>And your BIL should hold back some monies in the estate to pay the taxes for 2014 that will be filed in 2015, and to cover other fees (attorney fees, accountant fees, filing fees for letters of testamentary, closing the estate, and whatever else comes along) and when all is said and done, then distribute evenly whats left in the estate. When we did this for my dad, the attorney for the trust held back $15k to cover all the potential outstanding expenses, including any remaining bills from him, tax payment, payment to the accountant, etc. My #@*&$) brother went nuts and sent a threatening letter to the attorney 2 mos after the estate was distributed . Never mind that we hadnt even yet done the estate/trust taxes because this was September and the taxes could be done till the following January/February . And if there is no money left in the estate and there are taxes due or legal bills, guess who gets stuck paying. And when the executor pays and tells the sibs that there were additional estate expenses due but no money left, and could you please send your portion of XXXX to pay this outstanding bill, well you can guess the response of many sibs once they’ve gotten their $.</p>
<p>As you can tell, this is a sore subject for me, so I sympathize with your BIL. </p>
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<p>I haven’t seen anything that says he has the legal authority of an executor (actually called a personal representative these days). If she is deceased and no one else is joint, then he no longer SHOULD have check writing capabilities and the funds should be disbursed by the bank as the POD is stated. Anything else he is doing is illegal if that is the case. That is what I mean by freezing the funds. He has no legal authority to keep writing checks if she is deceased and the account is not joint with him.</p>
<p>Certainly the BIL does not seem to be carrying out his fiduciary responsibility as an executor should… there are laws about what order various things should be paid in, but I don’t even see that he has been given the legal authority anyway. </p>
<p>I have also been an executor for an estate that was open for 9 years and was rife with lawsuits and bad behavior, but I am not sympathetic to the BIL if he is mixing his own business interests with another sibling into carrying out his role as executor. If he even has officially been given that role… only a court can appoint a personal representative, he can’t just appoint himself.</p>
<p>It hasn’t been clearly explained if this brother is officially executor, has letters of testamentary, or simply is jointly on the account in question (in the OP is says the funds were put jointly in the children’s names). If this means that all the funds are in every childs name simultaneously, that can be a mess, since everyone has to agree on the distribution of the money. I would never do that to my sons, and they get along very well.</p>
<p>Again, yes, there is a legal responsibility as an executor, but the relationship between the sibs has some value too, even though it may not be monetary. Do we know that the sister is unwilling to pay down some or all of the loan? If she is unwilling to pay any of it down, that would really annoy me, if I were the one who loaned it to her. Sure she is within her legal right, but there is more to sibling relationship than what they are legally allowed to do.</p>
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sounds like sister’s share covers her outstanding loan balance to brother with money left over.</p>
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<p>No. I don’t think there will be money leftover. The estate isn’t huge and there are 8 kids. I think her share will cover or nearly cover what she owes BIL. I’m not sure of the total estate because the death was rather recent and there’s always loose ends to tie up before distribution…including taxes, etc. I think each child will get about $50k…not a huge sum. </p>
<p>I think H’s other brother may get more involved (he is a family law atty). He may tell his brother just divide equally since the accounts are in all names and therefore that one brother has no right to divide any differently. </p>
<p>We feel for the the sister because she has been paying on-time and keeping to the terms. two years ago, she and her H bought a fixer-upper which seemed like a great deal at the time (her H works in real estate), but it has been a big money-pit and getting a one time payout from this inheritance would help with their situation. She and her H do have a good income…she’s a RN and he does pretty well in real estate so they aren’t a big risk for this loan…which is why BIL lent them the money in the first place. </p>
<p>It’s funny that this started because of dream schools, a topic often discussed here on CC. Two cousins wanting to go to a certain dream LAC. One niece’s parents easily affording, the other niece’s parents could not. Wealthier parent wanted both girls at the same school, so the loan was offered. </p>
<p>When my dad died, there was a checking and a savings account with a reasonable sum of cash in them together that were jointly in his and my name. Legally I didn’t have to give a penny of it to my brother. Legally it was mine. But I did the right thing and gave my (*$&^&$ brother his share. Was he appreciative? Heck no. He sent threatening demand letters to the atty. Our relationship, as poor as it was, is permanently damaged.</p>
<p>I agree with JYM. The sil probably would not have been able to borrow the kind of money she borrowed from BIL without taking out a parent plus loan, at less advantageous terms I would think, otherwise she could have just done that and left BIL out of it. Now that she is coming into some cash it is the perfect time to settle her debt and move on. BIL is not a bank to be dealt with in the way you would deal with a bank. Obviously she preferred his terms to the bank at the time of the loan. Now she should be generous and just pay it off and be done with the favor, since I would think that if we read all the terms, there was some aspect of favor in them.</p>
<p>The join account thing is not so easily determined as folks here have implied. Joint tenants (as opposed to tenants in common) own the account jointly and severally, an undivided interest in the assets. This means one person, the one with the check writing authority if there is only one, can take all the money out and it is perfectly legal. The others have no recourse. Tenants in common own an equal share of the property. In my experience you can set an account up as tenants in common, but it is not the usual case. You must specify “tenants in common” on the paperwork. If the account merely names x, y and z on it, it is usually tenants in common. </p>
<p>FYI for joint accounts with your children, unless you are willing for the kids to take all the money, don’t set them up as “joint tenants.”</p>
<p>My own mother had an account for her funeral with my brother jointly on the account. He took the money out of it before she died, and never paid it back. When my mom died, I had to pay for the funeral, and wait for the estate to pay me back. Mom did have a will, and the other assets were not titled in the same way. Additionally, my mom left an asset to my then minor daughter. Although he had no right to do this, he counted that against my share of the estate cash to be distributed. My mom loved her son more than me I guess, and even though he could not be trusted she made him the executor. I could have made a big stink about it with the estate lawyer, but I didn’t. I actually said nothing, I wasn’t desperate for that cash, and he just showed himself to be the same snake that he always was. Also, since we have a sister, she would have gotten less if I had spoken up, and she could have used the money and it was not all that much overall. I have no ongoing relationship with him because this is the way he rolls.</p>
<p>$50K is NOT chump change. And it sounds like brother is having some cash challenges at the moment. While sister lives in a money pit, they have a reasonable income. The decent (not legal, but decent) thing to do is to offer to let him repay some of the loan (an agreed upon amount) from her share of the funds. Hopefully they can come to a reasonable compromise.</p>
<p>anothermom-
Your brother sounds like my brother. Snake is a good word, sadly. As I said, I could have done what your brother did. I could have kept all the money in the checking and savings accounts. It wasnt a fortune, but it wasnt chump change. But I did the ethical and moral thing. My brother is a complete jerk. I can sleep at night knowing I did the right thing. I dont care if I ever see him or his wingnut wife again. We will invite them to DS’s wedding because it is the right thing to do. He wont come. It requires his opening his wallet. Dust would fall out if he opened his wallet. He is scum. Sad, but true.</p>
<p>I know this thread isnt about my brother. I just hope OP’s sibs come to a reasonable agreement. Life is too short to fight over this stuff.</p>
<p>Wow, a whole bunch of posts went up since I posted. I just want the op to be clear, that the joint account does not necessarily mean that each person has an equal share (even if it is what mom intended). Joint and several ownership, joint tenancy, payable on death are different things and OP needs to know what the account really states. </p>
<p>If I had loaned the money out of the goodness of my heart, and now could use a faster payback from funds that became available, I would surely resent the person who said that they would just go by the original agreement since it was better for her. Additionally, since the brother did not give the money for his neice, the mother shouldn’t really argue that the B coerced her into spending the money. What about it didn’t she understand when the made her sign an agreement to pay them back?</p>
<p>My own dad died during the middle of my grad school. He and mom did not help me very much at all with money at that time since they didn’t really have extra. My own bonehead uncle made sure at the funeral to tell me not to ask to borrow from him ( and in those days you have to remember that tuition was only a few thousand dollars not tens of thousands). I never would have asked, but it told me how much he really cared for me. I borrowed from my other uncle - UNCLE SAM. He is everyone’s uncle and still loans kids money for school.</p>
<p>Haven’t read the whole thing, but what’s to stop SIL or your H from going down to the bank and withdrawing ALL of it, and distributing it how she or he sees fit. </p>
<p>If the account is joint, than all three have equal rights to ALL of the money. I mean, this could really be an interesting legal case, but there is nothing stopping anyone from taking the money. If it was a joint account, then it wasn’t your MIL’s any more. </p>
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<p>But was the account a pay-on-death trust, or some other form of ownership (joint account or something)?</p>
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<p>Hmmm, the fact that SIL’s finances are stretched, in combination with the BIL’s finances being stretched, seems to be the cause of the current conflict.</p>
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<p>There was no convincing them to roll in a tide of scholarship money?</p>
<p>Seems like the social pressure to “keep up with the Joneses” in terms of college selection and spending was a root cause of this conflict.</p>
<p>Or instead of all or nothing, she pays back half the loan with the proceeds.</p>
<p>It sounds like the BIL has a daughter at a LAC and he lend money to SIL so her daughter could go to the same LAC. Would she have made the same decision otherwise. $50k is too small of an amount to have a family feud. I would talk it over to see if there is a compromise.</p>
<p>There’s really not enough info to make a good judgement. If the loan was instigated at the Brother’s initiation, that’s one thing. If the terms are very favorable with respect to interest rate (any at all? this hasn’t been stated) or length of repayment, then that enters in.</p>
<p>Like many things, when circumstances change in a way that wasn’t foreseen, memories of “whose idea this was” sometimes shift. Good luck sorting it out. I think the idea of paying down half the loan might have some merit, but then you have to decide if the original terms get reduced by half (the payments), or whether the payment amount stays the same and you wind up paying it off earlier.</p>
<p>$50k is plenty to start a family feud. Ive seen them over a couple hundred dollars. Usually its more about the principle than the amount, but at that level, even well-off people care about the amounts. </p>
<p>I agree it’s about principle and not the amount.</p>
<p>It is about the money. $50,000 is a lot of money.</p>
<p>If you think about it, it only affords you less than 15 sqft of Manhattan($3500 sqft), so it depends on where you live.</p>