My Sister Thinks I'm Out To Kill Her (I Just Want To Sell a House)

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. My mom passed away last year. I tried to call last year, but I got through, but I didn't have time to finish the call. So she passed away last year. The house has paid off. It's my sister and myself are on the will to do something with her house and her estate, but I can't get my sister to initiate, to help me to get this, to put me on as a trustee so I can sell the house and give her her half and my half. So what are my options here? She doesn't want to sell the house. Why? She's got a little bit of a mental health. Well, she's got a mental health issue and she thinks I'm out to kill her or something to that effect. Oh yeah. So what does selling a property have to do with this? I have no idea, man. She won't even answer my call. I know where she lives. I went over there to talk to her and she threatened to call the cops because I wasn't invited on her property or something to that effect. Do you have a history of being murderous? No, I don't. Okay. Do you think you need to get a court order or a judge involved if she's honestly mentally unwell for you to be listed with her on this? It's going to be hard for you guys to do anything. Yeah, she can pass that test. She can pass that. She's done it before. I think she does have some mental health issues, but when she goes to court because she's been to court a few times, I think she passed out all that. So I'm trying to avoid this going into probate. It shouldn't really go to probate, but that might be where we're going. I think it's going to go regardless. Was it willed that way or is this just something you guys are assuming? Well, what do you mean by willed, ma'am? Did she have a will that said that you and your sister are the owners of the house if she were to pass away? Yeah, it's even down to myself, my sister and myself. Yeah. Equally 50-50. Yeah. What's the house worth? Probably about $500,000, $600,000, something to that effect. How are you doing financially? I'm doing okay, man. With all this happening, because I took care of my mom and dad for a long time. And then my dad passed away in 2021 and my mom passed away last year, a little burnt out. Kind of got a little bit of a nest egg with my pension and my 401. I'm a little early for retirement because I can do it at 52, which turns in November. So I'm thinking about going ahead and pulling the trigger on that, but I'd like to get that settled. But I don't know what my options are because every time I try to talk to her, it's Summer gets busy fast between vacations, camps, and travel plans. The last thing you need is another thing to manage. That is why I love Delete.me. Delete.me removes your personal information from hundreds of data broker sites that can leave you vulnerable to spammers and scammers. And they keep monitoring it all year long. And honestly, it feels good knowing that someone is handling it for me. And you can get 20% off an annual plan at joindeleteme.com slash Ramsey. That's joindeleteme.com slash Ramsey. Every time I try to talk to her, she doesn't return a call. She doesn't want to talk to me. It just keeps going on and on. Well, I mean, there's something you can do called a partition action, but that's going to cost you time and money in courts to basically have the judge force the sale of the house. And she obviously is not in a place where she's going to buy you out. She doesn't have $250,000 to take your portion to get you out of this. So the other option is it just sits. Is anyone using the house right now? No, nobody's using the house now. It's just vacant collecting dust and you guys are paying property taxes and insurance on it. Who's covering that? My mom's estate. She sells her money in the bank. Okay. And once that gets dwindled down, what happens? Or is there enough to cover it in perpetuity? Like there's 500,000 bucks in there? No, it's not even close to that. I would talk to your... I mean, you can't talk to your sister casually at this point. So you might need a mediator to actually get through to her to explain the situation and the options are. And are you saying... is it just with you or does she have enough mental health issues that she's not in a place where she could even make this decision? She really hasn't worked in years. I can't remember the last time she had a real job. She does this hustling thing where she does try to book people for travel and stuff like that. But she's got a pie in the sky, you know, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, but on a book of these budgets, you know, it's been like that for years and I didn't get any assistance with her taking care of my mom or dad for years. So I don't expect her to change anything now. I just want her to find the paperwork over to me. I'm not going to, you know, I'll have it all legal, you know, where she'll get her half and I get my half. Does she understand she's going to walk away this thing with, you know, over 200 grand? That's life changing money considering it's not even being rented out. There's no cash flow happening here. No. So regardless of how she feels about you, if someone were to stroke her to check for 250 grand, I think she would take it. I'll try to go that route, you know, but this is like, it's tough, you know, because I can't get to cooperate. I think you're going to need a mediator. Yeah. Yeah, I would contact a lawyer and just kind of understand what your state laws are and what you're able to do and not able to do to at least give you some clear next steps, regardless of the communication with her. But this is, this is a messy one. It's a pretty rare scenario where your sister thinks you're out to murder her and therefore won't let you sell the property. But I don't know what that has to do with the property still. Regardless, you don't have to be there for the sale. You guys can be in separate rooms, but I would try to get some closure on this and I'll let it just sit there collecting dust while you keep paying the bills out of mom's estate. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.