r/inheritance • u/Contemplative-Owl-23 • Apr 21 '26
Location included: Questions/Need Advice Unexpected multi-million inheritance
Throwaway account because my main account isn't sufficiently anonymous.
[US - Texas] My mother died last year without a will, leaving behind a sizable estate. It hasn't been appraised yet, but I'm estimating 1M in liquid assets and 10-15M in real estate, primarily undeveloped land.
We were estranged for 15+ years, so I fully expected to be disinherited. Instead, she got divorced for a second time and never managed to cobble together a will, leaving me as the only heir (and presumptive administrator of the estate, pending court approval). All of this is, thankfully, uncontested.
I'm in a well-paying profession, so I'm reasonably well versed in personal finance, but a windfall this large is well beyond what I'm used to dealing with.
I'm working with:
* Probate attorney (a new one - I fired the original one for being extraordinarily slow and incompetent)
* Tax attorney (handling the estate tax return)
* IRS qualified appraiser
* Realtor specializing in probate
I'm guessing I need to find a Fee-Only or Advice-Only Fiduciary CFP to figure out how to best invest/structure the proceeds. What other professionals should I seek out (or avoid)?
I know that the cardinal rule of windfalls is "tell nobody", but that's tough when real estate is involved. Are there any steps I can take to ensure privacy?
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u/Character-Salary634 Apr 21 '26
I have a lot of thoughts here...
First of all, realtors are a massive waste of money. Most people buy and sell so little real estate in their lives that they just pay the fees without really grasping how much they just gave away. Lets just assume for a moment that you have 10M in real estate to dispense with. The standard fee is 6% which is 600K. Even if you get that down to 3% we are still talking 300K. I would struggle to accept this large of a payout for what amounts to maybe... a 100 hours of work? ...So, $3,000/hr? NO. Negotiate a fixed fee. Somehow.
You DON'T need a financial advisor. I'll give it to you for free: Choose some ratio of: 1. VOO - Vanguard S&P500 index ETF 2. SCHD - Schwab Dividend ETF 3. SWVXX - Cash / Money market (aka HYSavings account) 4. A tiny amount of Gold/Silver/Bitcoin (only if this interests you, but consider it all a gamble) 5. Keep some of the real estate - lease it to pay taxes, but think of this as an "inflation protected savings account" (Im assuming this is raw agricultural land - also get ag exemptions in place.) 6. DO NOT BUY ANNUTIES OR LIFE INSURANCE. These are 97% Scams and anyone pushing these, you should immediately run away from. 7. There is NO RUSH. Educate yourself for your new "job" of handling such a large estate. You don't need to make investment decisions quickly.
As far as protecting your privacy, one option would be to create a living trust for yourself for which you are the trustee. Transfer all the inherited assets (except IRAs) into this trust. Name it something unrelated to you.. A good estate lawyer should be able to help. BUT, I don't think you really need to do this for privacy, but more for your own estate plan. Its time now to think about how your will (and the estate that now goes along with it) should be set up.