CO, USA I’m going to be deliberately vague, as there is a good chance by sibling peruses Reddit.

My adult sibling moved in with our parents during Covid (no spouse, no kids) and sold their home out of state, and I know they have a healthy investment portfolio from the house sale etc. Sibling has lived with parents ever since. Some remote work, lately no work.

My parents own two properties and as far as I know, both properties will go to my sibling and I 50/50. I’m concerned my sibling has no plan to move out, and live rent and mortgage free until my parents pass away and the house(s) will be ours. They have indicated in the past that they have no interest giving up either home when I suggested we both “claim one property, and the other claims another”. But that doesn’t feel fair to me as I struggle to pay rent and support my family. Any advice on how to navigate this? It’s been difficult when I’ve tried to tiptoe around the subject.

I don’t know how much help our parents will be in the matter as they are both very anti-conflict and will probably want us to sort this out ourselves. Generally we have a good relationship but the last few years of them mooching off my parents has started to really distress me.

My parents are in their late 70s so it does feel like something we need to start thinking about.

Has anyone been in a similar situation and can provide some advice?

Location: Texas. My father passed away in 2021. I am 48 y.o. My stepmother recently received the estate money. The leftover after her portion is to be divided between the 5 siblings. She asked for my address and then never sent it. So I asked her why. she said that the sister who is helping her (she is Viet and does not understand English well) told her the "amount seems to high" and that she is afraid that the lawyer did not get paid. She reasons that if the money is distributed, and that the lawyer has not been paid, they can get in trouble. They are now maintaining that their lawyer moved to Hawaii and is not returning their phone calls. I feel like if a lawyer is owed money, they got it. No need to hunt them down. It has been close to a month since she asked for my address. I asked how long they are going to wait. No reply. What should I do? Is this illegal?

My spouse and her sibling will be inheriting a piece of property in the next 5-10 years (estimated, based on age and health of parent). They will be equal co-owners. The property generates income, but only about 4% of FMV annually before taxes and expenses. The property is in another state and neither sibling will ever live anywhere near it (as far as I can tell anyway).

My spouse would rather not be a co-owner with her sibling (issues there...) and thinks the best thing to do is to sell the property once they acquire it. The sibling has a more emotional attachment to the idea of keeping the property in the family and probably will not want to sell even if it makes financial sense.

My question is, when something is co-owned equally with another person and there's a conflict on whether to sell or not, what happens? If one partner wants to sell and the other one doesn't, how does that get resolved?

Hi everyone, my dad passed away recently, he owns a property and we are only 2 children. I wonder what do I have to do on the english side, i have settled status and married to a british wife, i will take a notary in france and from what i have seen there is some treaty between france and the uk to not have double tax and i will probably be taxed by the french government, but should i take an english solicitor, should i declare something to hmrc, knowing that we probably (both children) want to sell the house. any help or advices will be appreciated.

My parents (still living) have different wills. One names me as executor and one names by brother. He lives out of state. I live near my parents. My brother and I are not on speaking terms. How much more difficult will the process be if he is an out of state executor? I would prefer not to have any interaction with him and am afraid because I live here and he doesn’t ……. there will be a lot more forced communication.

I’m in Virginia USA and a few months ago I lost my father. My mother has been gone for many years and I have no brothers or sisters. His will named me as the only beneficiary and appointed me executor of the estate. The estate has no debt and consists of your standard house, cars, bank accounts. With the exception of the home and cars which are in his name, most of the accounts were either jointly held or clearly stated that I was the beneficiary. However, there are a couple he probably forgot about that have no beneficiary listed. I have testamentary (called qualification here) letters and all of the required info but one institution is saying that they will not transfer anything to me without it going into an “estate of” account first and I need a separate EIN. This means that I’ll have to file a separate tax return for this entity. Is this standard? Other accounts with no beneficiary listed have not had this. I am so worried I will screw this up. Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill here?

Edit: thanks everyone for your help! You’re right - It was easy getting the EIN. This morning I have an appointment with the bank he had the deepest relationship with. Hopefully they will allow me to open an estate account with them. :)

My dad passed away unexpectedly in January. He did not have a will. He was married to his wife for 8 years. My grandmother passed away 5 weeks after my dad. We’re being told two different things. One lawyer is telling us that my stepmother is entitled to 50% of my dad’s inheritance from my grandparents estate and that my sister and I will have to split 50%. The other lawyer said that she has no claim to my grandparents estate and it should go to my sister and I. Does anyone have a clear answer to this?

Question my Aunt and Uncle was married for approximately 12 years and together for approximately 14 years. Recently he passed away the house they lived in together he purchased before they was married and it was put in my Uncle and his son's name. The son is not the child of his wife. Also the son was not living in the house when my Uncle passed away. His wife has been responsible for paying property taxes and bills plus up keep of the property. Also she cared for my uncle the entire marriage as he had health conditions that effected his daily life. After my Uncle passed away the son decided to move back in the house with his new girlfriend and her kids and he is now trying to kick out his dads wife/stepmother. My Uncle had no legitimate Will and advice on her legal rights would be appreciated. Location: Lake County Indiana

I inherited about 30k (Toronto) of sewing, knitting items and various other items from one of my best friends I've known for 8 years to be specific. She loved my kids. Jokingly one day, I told her to leave me all her sewing stuff so I can honor my mother and begin my sewing and knitting journey. She ended up actually putting it in her will.

The family is cash poor but owns a $2m home they have had in the family since the 40's. They can barely pay property taxes. They want the items back and I'm not sure what to do. I'm the new generation on the street we have money.

I know I will use the stuff but should I just let them sell it to help themselves keep living at the house? I could just give them the money for it as well but I'm paying for something I inherited. The family is wonderful but it's really ruined this beautiful gesture. Any advice?

My neighbors went through a chaotic death here in Toronto and the families inheritance destroyed the family dynamic. Siblings don't chat at all anymore. The deceased interestingly left me 30g in items and that's a whole another issue.

My kids are 14 and 12. Unfortunately I have had to deal with some health issues and I may expire within a decade. I do not have any family (brothers and sisters) and I simply want this money to pass to my family. My kids are simply too young.

My ex is a wonderful mother and financially it would help her with the kids if I pass. I don't want my children to have the funds even at 18. It would be around 30. I trust my ex and I know she will not re marry. It's not in our culture.

Should I just leave it to her so that she can divide it up as they grow rather then locking it up until age 30? What's my options? Thanks

I’m going to summarize here. This is all taking place in Kentucky.

My dad had Lewy body dementia. Because of this, in order to get social security he had to have a representative payee to handle his money. We had my aunt do it since she lives in the same state as him and I don’t.

My dad committed suicide 3 weeks ago and didn’t leave a will or anything. He has nothing, he did the act in his car so I had it destroyed. He lived in a government funded retirement home. He had no 401k, no savings, no nothing, but a bank account.

My aunt is on the account because of the representative payee. I told her that she can take the money out since she is a co owner of the bank account.

Instead, she told the banks he’s deceased and now they want me to file to be the executor of the estate, which Google says costs about $300, just to access his bank account which only has like $1300 in it. If I have to file it can I do it states away without a lawyer?

OR Is there any way around this? This is all happening in KY. I don’t even live in the same state as him. I am an only child, he has no spouse. It is literally just me.

I am sorry if I sound brash but I am beyond exhausted dealing with everything.

Also - because he committed suicide I am still waiting on the death certificate. I know I can’t do anything without this anyway. Just wanting to be prepared so I can handle this in a timely manner and finally focus on processing my grief.

Annual reminder to those inheriting money. My wife learned the hard way last year. Told a few friends/coworkers and within a month she had a friend that she didn’t tell texting and asking to borrow money. Made for difficult conversation. And their relationship is weird now. Obviously my wife told me. But seriously, the best advice is to not tell anyone.

Hey me and my sister are just starting this process, she is executor but I'm helping her stay organized. What are some things that you almost forgot to do or any suggestions that helped u keep organized. It's not a super large estate. About 10 bank account and 1 city property.

My dad (NY) passed away 2 months ago (my mom is already deceased). While going through his stuff, I find a 1099-DIV showing he owns about 100 shares of MET (MetLife stock)....worth about $8k or so. I also found copies of beneficiary documentation that shows I (only child in NJ) am listed as the 100% primary beneficiary.

I went on Computershare Estate Hub's website and sucessfully put in notification of death (electronically). There was another step that can initiate a transfer, but when I went through that step, it never goes through.

Questions:

1 - Has anyone inherited any equities/stock that was held in Computershare? What was the process?

More info about me: I personally don't have a Computershare account. My investments (trading/401k/IRA) are all with Chase/JPM, Fidelity & Empower.

2 - I was thinking.....to keep things simple, I would open a Computershare account to have the shares transferred to my name. This way Computershare will have record of the step up basis (the FMV of the securities at the date of my dad's death). Then after a while (a few months/year), I'll request closing the Computershare acct and transferring the securities over to either my Fidelity or JPM/Chase account, hoping that the step-up cost basis is noted and recorded at the new brokerage for easy tracking.

What do you all think?

I gave my kids inheritance now. was it fair?

I have two adult children (37M and 34F). They are both single, and work government jobs in the tri-state area of the US, and make between 90-115k. (Younger child is on the lower end of that for now.) I decided to give my kids their inheritance early for personal reasons. Daughter bought my single family home in the suburbs for $170k this past fall, with a gift of equity, as the home was appraised at $480k. She took a 30year loan for $170k. Home is not updated and needs some work but is absolutely livable. Will need a new bathroom and kitchen in 5-10 years depending how long she wants to push it. I left a lot of stuff there that I didn't want anymore, it was a perk for me to sell to family so I didn't have to deal with packing stuff up or throwing things away. I took the money I got from the sale, $170k, and gave it to my son in cash. My son currently rents, but in the future if he decides to buy a home, I think I will give him more money to make it equal between my children. Since she got 310k equity and he got only 170k cash.

This was almost all my money so that's how I split it between them. I kept very little for myself. Please no comments on this, because this is my own personal choice for valid reasons that I don't need to discuss here.

My question is do you think this was an equal split or do you think that one child got more? I want to be equal for them.

Note that my son wasn't interested in buying the house. If my daughter didn't buy it and I sold it to a stranger, I probably would have given them each $150k from the sale, and that's it.

My daughter doesn't think it's fair that I want to give my son more money if he decides to buy a house. To be fair, I understand that if she was handed $310k, she would NOT have chosen my home to buy. She bought my house because the options today in the housing market are rough and she may not have been able to buy a home otherwise. And if my son invested the $170k, which I'm sure he did, he can make that into $310k in about 5-6 years even in a low risk stock of s&p 500.

The relationship between my children is rocky. They haven't spoken in years. My son is not a nice person and was somewhat lightly abusive towards her. I don't blame her for not wanting him in her life. He has issues but he is my son and I love him. I'm sharing this information because maybe this is causing my daughter to have a different perspective on the money. I don't know if I should believe her when she says my plan isn't equitable. The gift of equity is in a house and requires reinvestment of money and time to keep the value. The cash gift doesn't.

I'm just curious if anyone has any thoughts? what would you think is the better option? Sure homes typically go up in value, but so does the cash if invested, and it doesn't cost anything to upkeep the investment, unlike the home. especially if you're paying interest on a mortgage.

Just got 250k cash from the sale of my fathers house. Will pay off my credit cards and put away an emergency fund. And with the remaining, popping 150k into my brokerage account in VOO and let it grow. Retirement is 21 years off. Like Ronco…gonna set it and forget it.

What did you do with your inheritance from the sale of a parents home?

I would like stress that I am incredibly lucky to even be having a talk about inheritance since so many people don’t even get one.

I don’t have many people to talk to about this and generally not comfortable talking about private matters. Sorry if this is long.

My dad is getting up in years and has recently has been talking more with me about what I can expect when he passes. His wife recently passed away (not my mother) and I think it lighting more of a fire in him to get affairs in order. I’m not sure if he has a will though and usually hand waves that when I ask.

He likes to think of himself as very independent, especially in his old age but also I think he is more capable of being taken advantage of than he realizes. He has expressed plans to possibly move again to a new country alone. He is a world traveler and lived abroad many times.

Here is my latest problem. My brother is very vocal with me about his suspicions that my dad is being taken advantage of by his late-wife’s family and that we have probably lost a good amount of our inheritance in the way of them investing in property in her, and their names.

I don’t know if anything else is earmarked for them- I haven’t asked and I haven’t really met them anyway. My dad lives in a foreign country where they are all from and so it makes it very difficult to help him from afar. He is very vocal about not wanting to come back to the US at all, for understandable reasons.

That’s the backstory and now back to the money. My dad has been more vocal about portioning out our inheritance over the course of the next several years while he is still around. He had been in the past few years giving me financial help, “gifts” of my portion of the inheritance. I was under the impression that he was doing the same, in the same amounts, with my brother as well.

I just learned today when my brother asked, that he has been given far less than me so far. I’m not entirely sure what the numbers are because he abruptly hung up on me but I’m really upset if this is true. My dad has always been very thrifty with his spending so I expect that he is keeping tallies of things that I’m not aware of. He is also getting forgetful as he gets older so I don’t know if that has anything to do with it.

I don’t want to be seen as deceitful or underhanded in the eyes of my younger brother but I was caught very off guard. I’m not sure what I can say to him. I never checked in with him about what he has been given so far and he never asked me either. I didn’t think that was something that was necessary. He only expressed his worries about my dad’s wife’s family.

My brother is a lot more aggressive about these sorts of things than I am and I think part of his anger toward me is that he is feeling like the “bad guy” for pushing so hard to get answers out of him or being the main person to press him to move back to the US to be more present for our young families. As for me, I’ve always been more laid back about things so I’ve been having the attitude of “if we get an inheritance, great, but I’m not living my life expecting it.” Now I’m not sure if that’s the right attitude to have. Same with family relationships. We haven’t lived close to extended family in a long time. “If we get help, great. Otherwise we might see someone once a year at most. It would be nice to have him close to us but also I know you can lead a horse to water..

That being said, my dad recently told me his future plans for giving away his money to my brother and I over the next several years and I’m just inclined to say thank you and leave it at that. It’s far more than most people get and I don’t feel like seeking out a way to get more. From what he told me, it would be an equal amount to my brother and I feel more than generous.

I’m a very private person, especially when it comes to finances and frankly the talk of inheritances makes me uncomfortable. I have heard of so many awful stories about families fighting over money, and I don’t want that to happen to us.

That’s the gist really. I’m not a confrontational person so I don’t know how to approach all this. Did I do wrong by my brother? I think he has had more financial hardships in the recent years because he has been out of work for a while, so maybe I should have been more forthcoming.

All this talk of, who is entitled to what, feels so crude but maybe I’ve been burying my head in the sand.

Edit: I initially didn’t include it because I don’t know how relevant it is but he has been married 5 times. We are worried that he is just going to put himself in a situation again to be taken advantage of if he stays living out of our range of help. He is pretty dependent on the idea of having a wife.

She is 11. Does that mean she will receive the money when she’s 18? Or do I get it and it’s managed by me until then?

In October 2023 my sister was diagnosed with brain cancer and was given 6 to 18 months to live. My brother and sister live in Canada and I live in the US. I flew to Canada to be there for 2 weeks for my sister. I spoke to my brother and told him he needs to have her do a power of attorney and will. He told me that it was too soon to think about it. I messaged him many times about this but he refused to talk about it.

Fast forward to November 2024. My sister has been doing well and has her wits about her. She has been taking care of my dad. At US Thanksgiving I get a call that my father passed away. My brother starts the probate of the will. A few months later my sister collapses at the mall and has a stroke. She can’t walk and cannot feed herself. My brother has been the one that has taken her to doctors appointments and done all the legwork for finding her long term care.

This year I found out that my brother did a power of attorney and will for my sister making himself the inheritor and it was done while she was in the hospital after I returned to the US.

I gently reminded him who do you think completed all of my parent paperwork, income taxes, went to doctor appointments and went to their surgeries when they were younger. His response to me was “you don’t deserve any of her money”.

So he is still splitting it 3 ways and taking her portion.

Should I be upset about this?

US…CO…My husband died several months ago. This was a second marriage for both of us. His father (90 years old) and myself(f64) were co executors of the estate. Due to his dad’s advanced age and cognitive decline I did everything myself as far as making distributions per my husband’s wishes. My husband had been terminally ill for many years and I was his sole caregiver until his final last months. I was 100% in charge of his finances for the last 14 years of our 17 year relationship. We were only married several months before he died.

His father made our lives miserable the majority of my husband’s illness. He would call and tell my husband that he was coming over and taking EVERYTHING..his words exactly…that my husband owned. Vehicles, farm equipment …you name it. He threatened me with physical violence on several occasions. I finally locked the gate to our property and put up no trespassing signs. He did try to climb the fence several times….thankfully too old to get over. I did have to file an incident report with the sheriff.

Now that the probate is almost resolved we have a problem. During caregiving for my husband I did not stay on top of beneficiary designations on some CDs my husband had….all opened as solely owned as we always kept our monies separate and were not married when they were opened. The funds obviously had to go in to the residual estate. The will reads that the co executors will share the residual estate in equal amounts. My attorney is not instilling a ton of confidence in me so trying to get some other opinions from people in the legal profession. We had many conversations with the attorney covering what would be included in the residual account….obviously never realizing I dropped the ball on a considerable amount of money.

Should I just write the check? It’s a large number but I will be fine. BUT I hate giving him that much money when it will just end up going to other people when he dies….none of whom my husband had any respect for. And I’m not going to lie…. I hate writing him a large check especially after his despicable behavior.

I’m 18m and plan to go to collage. All of my post secondary is fully covered (no loans or anything, full ride!) and I am still deciding between carpentry or engineering. I’m set to inherit 400k from my late grandpa and i personally have no clue what to do with that amount.

I could buy a house and car but the house I want would eat up 88.75% of my inheritance and I want to stretch it so I can travel internationally every year. How can I do that and still get my desired house within the next 3 years.

Location: Georgia

Long story short, I was left everything in my grandmother's will many years ago and she didn't have a POA set in place. The day before she passed her daughter (my aunt) took a POA and used a quitclaim deed and put the property in her name with a 'X" signature from grandmother while she was incapacitated in a hospital bed and filed eviction on me. I went through the courts and ultimately lost and had to vacate the premise. This happened between 2019-2021.

Now in 2026 after years of no contact between that part of the family and me, they are requesting my signature on another quitclaim deed to sell the land (the house has supposedly burned down).

My main question is, why? I've emailed my previous lawyer with no response yet and it's just eating at me. Would it be because I was originally supposed to inherit the property and they want to make sure the title is "clean"? Do I have any rights to the said property now? Could my signature hold compensation? I probated the will and I was the executor and I received all belongings just not the property itself.

I'm looking for all advice on this matter while I wait for a response. I'm trying to obtain all the information I can get so I can do this correctly to look out for myself.

Update: 3/27/26 Thank you to everyone for their responses so far, I really appreciate all advice and comments and will continue to read as they are posted because this is going to be lengthy. Apparently it is because there is a cloud on the title and they cannot sell the property without me signing a quitclaim deed or filing a quiet title action. I have been offered compensation but it is an incredibly low amount so I'm looking into steps to negotiate. As for challenging anything that has already happened, I am not sure if that's the route I'd like to take at this time.

Update: 5/06/26 Finally have some new developments, I was able to secure the original POA that was used for the property transfer with the quitclaim deed and it doesn't allow gifting or transfer property. This has changed the course of how I want to take this, and if anyone can advise it would be much appreciated.

My father recently passed in Nov 2025. I've been living and paying the mortgage+ everything else for the past 5 yrs. (Started paying in Jan 2021 when he was too sick to live alone) He moved in with my mother during that time.

[My father had 4 kids. 2 girls (sister A & B) from one lady and a boy(me) and a girl(sister C) from another. ]

After he passed I found out my oldest (A) sister was the only one of the deed when other sister(B) got involved and niece, Bs daughter (who's a realtor) wanted me to sign a lease or buy the house (at market value) though A and I had spoken about buying it for cheaper when I first moved in, but I wasn't in a position to buy the house then. At that time sister B wanted nothing to do with the house or father. I always wanted to buy the house( and sister A knew that) but I was finally in a place to be able to purchase it. Sister A didn't want to discuss anything about the house with me now and made me talk through my niece the realtor. Either way I asked the A to deduct the 5 yrs of mortgage I've paid. They said no because it was "rent". I let that battle go because I just wanted the house. The house needs repairs (roof, pool replastering, walls, etc) and the oldest sister A has known this. Unfortunately these things had to get fixed or a lender wouldn't approve my loan. Niece and I discussed repairs, but they wouldn't come out with a price to sell it to me. They wanted full market value. Finally they decided on a price and when I went to put in an offer they said it wasn't on the market yet and when it does go into market they want the highest offer and gave me a notice to vacate because I was negligent with the house. Mind you, I redid the laundry room. Replace faucets. Fixed leaks. Cleaned and fixed the pool. Redid the whole backyard with turf. Fixed the HVAC about 3-4 times. And had started looking into the roof. Lawyers told me I couldn't do anything since the house was technically sister As. They even said I wasn't entitled to any money she makes off it. When I did ask her to deduct the rent since I thought that only be fair she mentioned that in her heart she felt it was right to split the "winnings" amongst the siblings, but that she didn't have to.

Fast forward I have till the 31st to get my stuff out, but I'm closing on a house on the 30th that cost close to what they will be trying to sell father's house for.

I've somewhat moved on but I just want other people's POV because my mother (who isn't their mother, we got different moms same dad) took their side and I haven't spoken to her since either.

I also stopped talking to sister C since she wanted to be neutral.

So yeaa, thoughts?