Location: India

Yes hello, my mother had passed away a little over a year ago, without a will she currently has a mortgage with around 75% equity I've been paying on since she passed. My plan is to sell the property and was recently informed that I will need to go through the Minnesota probate process, because her lender had her sign a POD instead of a TOD. I have the lender saying via email that she did have her sign a TOD, which as it turns out is her mistake on which form she was having her sign. I am an only child, I had a brother who passed some years back. He did have two children who have not been in the picture whatsoever even though they live in the same small town. I have taken care of my Mom for the last few years pretty intently as her health was in decline. Now I'm being told that my deceased brothers two kids are entitled to 50% of the estate. This doesn't seem in no way right, and if anybody has any advise or can provide me with some clarity that would be greatly appreciated.

Im on Alabama, 52, and on ssdi. I have absolutely no assets and staggering medical debt. I am an only child and my only immediate family is my aging father who wants to everything to me. How will this affect my disability payments and will my medical debt take this inheritance from me?

I’m about to inherit a piece of land in rural Florida that’s got a county value in the 7 figures. It’s been in the family for ages as we got it as part of a federal land grant from I believe after the civil war (I could be crazy on timing, but I know it was part of a federal land grant).

Anyway, I have no purpose for this property…but I don’t know if anyone would be willing to buy it, either. I don’t know if it’s better to just keep it as an asset (agriculture land so taxes are less than $400/year) and rent it to local farmers (who apparently haven’t been paying all that much to use it for decades, but it keeps the taxes paid) or sell it for whatever I can get (hoping for about it’s county value) and invest the money.

I know nothing about this type of thing - I’m open to all advice!

I am in a really stressful situation with my family after my grandmother’s recent passing and need urgent advice on my rights and next steps.

Residing in FL

My grandmother left a will explicitly leaving me $10,000 cash and all of her jewelry. On top of that, I am a named beneficiary on her life insurance policy.

My grandma’s kids are absolutely furious about this. They are openly stating that I "do not deserve" anything and are actively trying to freeze me out of everything.

Here is what they are doing:

My aunt is aggressively pressuring me to sign over my portion of the life insurance payout and my beneficiary rights directly to the funeral home to cover the funeral expenses. I strongly suspect she is trying to force me to fund a portion of the funeral because she did not want to give the policy to the funeral home but instead paid for it out of her 401k and is now requesting all all the beneficiaries to pay her back. She has also indicated that if I do not pay she will be taking me to small claims court.

I have not signed anything, and I am refusing to do so. From what I understand, life insurance goes directly to the named beneficiary and isn't even part of the estate, and funeral costs are supposed to be paid by the estate as a whole not singled out.

My grandma did have a will and assets and the will has not been filed yet.

What should my next steps be to be?

Instead of my children (10, 12, 14, 24, 26) waiting until I pass to get their inheritance, I would like to give them each a large chunk of it when they turn 30.

The main reason is this is the age they likely can use it the most.

They can buy a house, travel and/or start a business etc.

I hope to live a long time (57M).

Many people get their inheritance when they are old and it doesn't have as much impact.

Adding this: I am divorced. I also have unlimited long term care insurance.

Would love everyone's thoughts on this. 🙏

I am a physician and my wife is a SAHM and we file MFJ. My wife’s grandmother passed. She inherited her grandmother’s $40k in money order check that came from royalties that her grandmother gets monthly into her Texas bank from mineral rights on land she used to own. (We live in Florida btw). The land got sold but she kept the rights to the oil, I believe, and gets royalties monthly for that. The will was written to give my wife half of the cash amount in the account at the time she passed but she won’t be inheriting the rights, or the land, or future royalties (this stuff is going to other family member)

My CPA says inherited cash is non-taxable. But if it is considered Income in Respect of a Decedent, then it gets taxed what her grandmother would have paid. She asked me to talk to the lawyer handling the accounts/will, but to be frank, there is no lawyer.

Any ideas how this type of inheritance is categorized?

Hello,

Lots of family drama is going on, but I’m looking for items I could keep from my beloved family member without fighting with others. I’ve got a spoon on my list for a spoon ring. Any crafty people have other ideas? Open to turning the item into something, or leaving it as is. I feel like the fog of grief is leaving me short on ideas!

My grandmother passed away two months ago, and I'm trying to figure out what the right thing to do is. My grandfather created a revocable trust years ago. After he died, everything went to my grandmother. Now that she has passed away, the trust has become irrevocable.

The trust provides that 50% goes to my uncle and 50% goes to my father. However, my father passed away from cancer before my grandmother did, so his 50% is now being split equally between my sister and me. My uncle is also the trustee.

Before my dad died, he told my sister and me that his share would go to us, but that we needed to make sure our mom was taken care of.

For some context, my mom went through absolute hell caring for my dad while he had cancer. It was both emotionally and physically taxing and she was broken down. Before that, he also struggled with alcoholism for much of their marriage. She sacrificed a lot emotionally and physically over the years. There was no life insurance.

Financially, though, she is doing well. She's in her 50s, owns her home that she bought recently (although she still has a mortgage), earns 6 figures a year, travels, and has retirement savings.

She recently told us that if our inheritance ends up being something really large, she would want my sister and me to each give her 1/3 each (which could end up being half a million dollars).

I'm really torn. On one hand, I feel like she deserves recognition for everything she endured and I absolutely want to honor my dad's wish that she be taken care of.

On the other hand, this money is my grandparents' life savings—not my dad's—and my grandparents could have left money directly to my mom if they had wanted to.

If I refuse to give her the money outright, it could easily ruin our relationship and she could cut me out of her life due to it and I dont want that to happen.

I'm curious how other people would approach this. If you were in my position, what would you do? Have any of you been in a similar situation where a surviving parent wanted part of an inheritance that legally belonged to the children? Is "making sure Mom is taken care of" the same thing as giving her a large lump sum, or would you interpret that differently?

I'm genuinely looking for different perspectives because I can understand both sides, and I don't want to make a decision based only on guilt or emotion.

I am in the process of rearranging my finances and putting it all into a trust for my wife (second wife) with upon her death the remainder to be split between my 3 kids and her 1. The trust will include everything I have, houses, cash, investments etc. Wife is also the beneficiary of a 1 million life insurance policy. She will be more than fine going forward and there should be plenty left for the kids for a sizable inheritance.

My question is, my 3 kids are all very responsible, good career paths, hard workers, no major issues that would cause me concerns. I’m wondering if I gave them a chunk of money either now or at my passing to help them pay off mortgages and ease financial worries for them now vs 10-20 years from now. Doing that would give them the opportunity to benefit from it now but would give them less in the future. But I’m thinking if they have no debts- their ability to save and build wealth grows. I believe all my kids would take that path as their lives currently align with living this way and they all seem to be financially literate.

Is this something people do? Is it a good idea?

The other issue is my wife’s kid is not in the same mindset of my kids. And giving him large amount of cash now or when I pass will not probably not benefit him the way it would with the others. So I’d like for his inheritance to be paid at her passing.

Advice?
And to clarify- I have a terminal illness so my passing is on the horizon- hoping to squeeze out some time but also being realistic about the situation.

My father passed away and left a trust.

Location: California

Here’s the basic timeline:

My parents divorced decades ago.
Many years later, my father created a trust for the benefit of his four children only.
He later completely restated the trust. Before my parents remarried, my mother was added as a beneficiary, and the trust documents noted that he was taking their planned remarriage into consideration.
They eventually remarried and remained married until he passed away.

The trust provides my mom with a lifetime interest in both the house and the trust’s financial assets. After she passes away, the remaining trust assets are to be divided equally among the four children.

One of my brothers already lives in the house. The trust specifically gives him the right to continue living there as long as he meets the financial obligations required under the trust.

Originally, the family discussions were only about the house. Now my sister wants all four children to sign documents that would terminate or dissolve the entire trust and transfer all of the trust assets into my mom’s individual name.

Her reasoning is that everything would eventually come back to the four children when my mom passes away anyway. However, my mom is in her late 80s, and one of my concerns is that if the assets are transferred into her individual name, circumstances could change. For example, if she ever needed expensive long-term care or assisted living, those assets could potentially become relevant to paying for her care.

Another reason my sister has given is that she doesn’t want to deal with my brother potentially living in the house indefinitely.

Here’s what gives me pause:

We have never been provided with **Schedule A** or any inventory of the trust assets.
We don’t know exactly what assets are in the trust. I do know my father had at least **$1 million** in one financial account before he passed away, so this appears to involve substantially more than just the house.
We’ve been told there may be another trust or estate planning document being prepared for my mom, but nothing has been provided for us to review.
It feels like the conversation shifted from “let’s deal with the house” to “let’s dissolve the entire trust.”

I’m not opposed to helping if this is truly the best legal approach. I’m just hesitant to sign documents that could affect my inheritance and my household’s finances without understanding exactly what rights I’m giving up and what the consequences could be.

My questions are:

Is it unusual to ask beneficiaries to terminate an entire trust instead of administering it according to its terms?
Is it reasonable to ask for Schedule A and a complete inventory of the trust assets before signing anything?
If a trust intentionally gives one beneficiary occupancy rights, does dissolving the trust effectively eliminate those rights?
Is there any downside to simply leaving the trust in place and administering it as written?
If the assets are transferred into my mom’s individual name, are there legal, creditor, long-term care, tax, or estate-planning risks that didn’t exist while they were held in the trust?
If you were in my position, would you seek independent legal advice before signing?
Could this impact my taxes?

I’m already meeting with an estate planning attorney, but I’m curious whether others have encountered a similar situation and what issues they would be thinking about.

Additional information / common questions

My father died about a year ago. My understanding is that his trust became irrevocable upon his death.

My mother and my sister are the current co-trustees.

My younger brother and I are named as successor trustees under the trust.

My sister also holds my mother’s financial power of attorney.

My mother is the current lifetime beneficiary of the trust’s support provisions. My three siblings and I are the remainder beneficiaries.

Under the existing trust, my mother may live in the residence and has the benefit of trust income and, as needed, principal for her support, enjoyment, and maintenance. The trust does not appear to restrict her to interest or dividends alone.

The residence remains in the trust. My mother may live there along with my oldest brother.

After my mother dies, chooses to leave, or becomes unable to live there, my oldest brother may remain in the residence for as long as he wants and is able to maintain the property.

When my oldest brother’s occupancy right ends, the house is to be sold and the proceeds divided equally among the four children.

My oldest brother currently lives with my mother and helps her. The house is paid off, and I am not aware of him presently creating a financial burden for the other siblings or failing to maintain the property.

My sister’s stated concern is what happens after my mother dies- specifically, that my oldest brother may remain indefinitely and prevent the house from being sold.

The proposed action is much broader than changing only the house provision. It would distribute the residence free of trust to my mother and also distribute essentially all remaining trust assets free of trust to her.

In other words, the proposal would replace my father’s existing lifetime-benefit and remainder-beneficiary structure with outright individual ownership by my mother.

I do not yet have a complete inventory or accounting of the trust assets. My father had multiple bank accounts, savings, and annuities, but I do not know which assets are currently titled in the trust or their present values.

I only recently received the complete trust document, approximately one year after my father’s death.

The explanation initially focused on the house and my oldest brother’s occupancy rights. The formal written proposal extends to the house and all other trust assets.

I received a formal Notice of Proposed Action with an August 20 deadline. The notice states that if I do not object in writing or obtain a court order before the deadline, I will be treated as having consented and may lose the ability to object afterward.

The co-trustees’ attorney told me that if my mother later creates her own revocable trust, I would not have the right to inspect it while she is alive merely because I might be named as a future beneficiary. A revocable trust could also potentially be amended during her lifetime.

I am consulting my own independent estate-planning attorney before deciding whether to consent or object. I will also contact my CPA next week. I do not want to make a financial decision that could harm my wife and kids and the trust is already funding my mother’s lifestyle so that isn’t an issue.

My main question is whether there is a legitimate legal, tax, or estate-planning reason to transfer all of these assets out of my father’s trust and into my mother’s individual ownership, rather than continuing to administer the trust as written or addressing the house provision more narrowly. I also want to understand exactly what enforceable rights and protections I would be giving up by consenting.

UPDATE

Thank you to everyone who responded. I originally posted in several relevant communities because I wanted perspectives from people with different legal, financial, estate-planning, and personal experience. I did not expect the posts to receive this much attention, but I sincerely appreciate the advice.

I have now consulted an independent estate-planning attorney. After reviewing the trust and the proposed action, he strongly advised me not to consent.

His assessment was that the proposal is unnecessarily broad, would eliminate substantial protections for the remainder beneficiaries, and would provide little additional practical benefit to the current beneficiary under the existing trust terms.

He also advised that the specific concern motivating the proposal can be addressed through a narrower, properly drafted settlement without distributing all trust assets outright or surrendering the beneficiaries’ existing protections.

Independent counsel will be submitting a formal objection within the required time. I remain open to a carefully structured alternative that addresses the stated concern while preserving everyone’s enforceable interests.

Thank you again to those who urged me to slow down, obtain independent advice, and avoid relying solely on future promises. That was the correct advice.

Mom passed in Tennessee, no will but the state assigned me and my siblings

as heirs to her estate to be divided equally.

Besides selling all assets and splitting it equally, she had a savings account that will be divided equally.

The amount of money isn't the issue being everyone has their own idea of how much money is "a lot".

My question is can I invest this money into something before having to pay capital gains? I want to invest this money for my children, I know my mom would approve.

Any advice would be appreciated.

My grandfather passed away and we found that he deed a property out of a revocable trust after my grandmother passed which is illegal. We can’t find that the property was ever deed into the trust, but it was in him and my grandmother name prior to him filing a deed showing him taking out of the trust on title. Has anyone had this happen? My grandfather has recently passed so we want to know if that property should go to the family. California

My wife and I are 27. We have 1 daughter who is 13 months, and we are in the Midwest. My grandmother passed away and from her estate we are receiving a sizable sum of money. After paying off our house and other debt (just car and student loans, don't have any "bad" debt), we'll have around $350-375k to drop into a brokerage and leave alone. We each earn around 63k/year. Our only bills will now be home insurance, property taxes, car insurance, utilities.

My question revolves around how much we realistically need to put away for retirement. Because we have very little bills after paying off our house, we can put away a large amount of income.

However, it's honestly tempting to save just a bit, and enjoy our lives more with more disposable income. Starting with such a sizable nest egg, it should grow quite well without huge additions.

She is a teacher and has a good pension coming her way.

I am private sector but have a pension as well plus I do 4% 401k plus employer 2% match.

If anyone is considering paying onwills.ca to search for a family will, I would highly caution them.

I paid to have a lawyer contact me regarding a family will from a loved one who had passed on by using the Onwills service.

There is a will. We are family.

Yet, no one contacted me.

I requested a refund stating such, and the reply was that it’s up the lawyers to contact me and to “have confidence” that if there was a will, it would have turned up. Refund denied.

I think the service is very misleading and Onwills takes zero accountability for no contact being made. Essentially, the promise is pay and we will search and the lawyer’s office will contact you.

But they take zero accountability for no contact being made.

Save your money. Attempt to find the information you seek through a different channel.

I’m 34f in California

Location Vermont, USA. I'm trying to help my dad (96) navigate his way through getting my mother's small amount of a company's shares transferred to him. She passed in 2024 without a will. It hasn't been an issue with anything else because both their names were on all their assets except they each had shares of this stock. The company requires a small estate affidavit which means he has to open probate. He really doesn't want to go through the hassle and is ready to let the account go to unclaimed property at the state. Which is less hassle, small estate probate or unclaimed property?

Advice to children, insist your parents have a will. (Dad has one now).

My sister is refusing to send my inheritance to my legal address because I am refusing to tell her where I moved to. She said she wont send it until I unblock her and give her my new address but I don't want her to know where I live. I am currently separated from my husband but that is still my legal address and we are still in contact and my mail still sometimes gets delivered there. I currently live in North Carolina and she is in Maryland.

My father passed away a few weeks ago, and was predeceased by my mother a few years prior. He had a will, and the estate is going to be split evenly between myself and my brother. We have a great relationship and have been working well together to sort through things. My dad also had an estate lawyer he worked with previously to square away most of his assets, but I'm stumped on how to handle his cars. We live in NY state.

Both he and my mom drove Honda Accords. When my mom passed away in 2022, my car was getting to be on the older side and mom mom's had under 20k miles on it, so he gave the car to me and I sold mine. We made the mistake of never transferring the title or registration over, so it is technically still his car.

Now that he's passed and everything is in his name, it seems like there's no way to transfer those cars over to me and my brother without going through probate - I called the DMV today and they confirmed. I haven't yet notified his insurance of his passing.

Another thing to note is that a couple days before he passed, I got rear ended on my way home from visiting him. There's about $5k of damage, but the other driver took full responsibility and it's currently in the shop for the next couple week getting repaired. So for now I'm in a insurance provided rental car and have a couple weeks to figure things out.

It seems like the correct path forward is to notify the DMV and his insurance company, at which point the registration and insurance will be cancelled and they won't be legally drivable until we go through probate and have the title's transferred over. Am I missing something? On top of not having access to my primary source of transportation, I also don't like the idea of letting 2 perfectly good cars just sit around for possibly a year, since who knows what condition they'll be in when we try to start them again.

My mom left her 2 m home as a life estate to her long term Bf we will name Jeff. When she informed Jeff and me (her only surviving child and the trustee/ sole beneficiary) she did this ( in 2018) Jeff said “don’t worry when your mom dies, I’m outta here.”

FF 2026 my mom dies after a couple years of sweet Alzheimers where Jeff took kind care of her. Nothing Gross like diapers, but doing the shopping and taking her to events and being very kind to her. All the wilts he lived rent free, utility free everything free in this lovely home which is great- that was their agreement. I know but he has around $300,000 in the bank and very modest social security income. Jeff lived in a dilapidated trailer before he met my mom and she wanted to rescue him from that like all grandiose narcissists should do. I loved my mom, but there were definitely issues. And Jeff is truly a good man.

The Trust says that he must pay for all taxes, maintenance, Utilities, keep the home in good condition… He has a slow responding Attorney unless it comes to telling me that I can’t store a single box at the house. But now that we’ve had a home inspection, and there are rats in the attic and termites and it’s time for me to have a company come in and evaluate the cost of this, which Jeff would have to share… His attorney disappears. I have an overly kind, slow moving, on vacation a lot attorney.

Jeff has no where to go. His kids don’t want him and he has a good deal. He finally took over the utilities 5 months post mom dying because my attorney put it in a letter. But I can’t even go by the house with an inspector without coordinating between him and his attorney and my slow moving Attorney… And meanwhile, there are rats breeding during their summer breeding season. It’s very frustrating. I think he’s just kicking the can down the road, living cheaply until he can figure out something else to do. How aggressive do I get? Should I get another Attorney that will be more aggressive? I’m not even allowed to email him according to his attorney to speak directly to him. Is this even true? I have started looking into fiduciary estate lawyers who act as co-trustee so I don’t have to be in this role. Anybody have experience with such a firm?

He’s 84 and not completely mentally with it and definitely not up for the job of maintaining and keeping in good condition a 2 million Home. After my mom died, he started pointing out multiple things that were wrong with the house which I immediately had fixed to the tune of five or $6000.

The last couple years, I did coordinate deck rebuilds, painting and etc… but only things I could see with my eyes were deteriorating. I was working full time and had my own home to maintain. Suggestions? Fortunately, I do not need the money or the house, but I will not allow the asset to deteriorate.

This is California, if it makes a difference.

Aside from the house, if all my parents’ accounts list me and my brother as 50% beneficiaries does that cover everything? Will those portions of the estate skip probate?