Father-In-Law's Estate Isn't Worth A Family Fight

Xander shops all the top-term insurance companies to save you money. Get started at Xander.com. All right, we're talking with Angela in Kansas City. Her father-in-law has chaos, and she wants to pay for a will so that she and her husband, his son, are excluded from the chaos. That's what we learned so far. And you said he's 62, Angela? He just turned 62, yes. So he is getting ready for retirement that he never set up. So what is it you're trying to avoid? Well, I've done some research. My understanding is that most debt, or maybe all debt, does not go to your children. Correct. None does. Zero. And the other part of the hassle is we all know that true colors come out. at either a wedding or a funeral. And he has many children, half of which really struggle with addiction. And we know that when that day comes, because he is divorced, he is single, it will be just absolute chaos with them trying to get what they feel. I don't think they fully understand how much debt he's in. And we, my husband is the oldest child. So a lot of burden falls on him. We want no part of it. We already know that we're going to have to pay for his funeral when that day comes, which we're going to do. So the children all want to split up nothing? I think, like, I'm just not convinced that they understand. Like he, he did buy a house like five years ago. He has not worked the past three months. There is no retirement. There is no life insurance. There is no 401k. There's nothing. And I don't know they fully grasp that, but also I. How long have you been married? 15 years. Okay. And there's how many brothers and sisters that are in this dysfunctional mess? My husband is the oldest of six. I have a feeling y'all are going to be in it regardless. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, and just what can we do? to pull ourselves away as much as we can. Like I said, he did have a very big health scare, which caused my husband to ask these questions of, hey, do you even have a will? I know he's been very blunt about he doesn't pay taxes, but he thinks Social Security will cover him when he does want to retire. So that's a losing battle of us even trying to help with that. How is he going to retire? He's not. He still believes that Social Security will be sending a monthly check to him. To cover his mortgage. But it's not enough to eat on. Correct. But that's irrelevant, okay. Well, I mean, if you guys just want to completely stiff arm and distance yourself from it, a will doesn't necessarily do that. If you pay for the will, you don't get to dictate what's in the will. We're hoping that. We have, you know, a semi-good enough relationship that we can say, hey, if we're fronting the money and we're agreeing to pay for it, we want to put in there, this is not our problem. And I think he would agree to that. But like you said. Yeah, you're going to appoint one of the crazies as the executor? 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And the chances of one of the six suing y'all is high. They're going to think if you're involved, you did something nefarious or you took. I mean, even if we put in that, we don't want any. So they would try to do that if we purposely excluded ourselves. Yeah, they could. Yeah, they could say, you know, they cleaned out dad's accounts and then they had this will cooked up that says, oh, yeah, there are no accounts. There's nothing. I know, but that doesn't mean they won't say that people can say anything in a lawsuit. You don't have to have a basis for a lawsuit. You can just sue. That's why lawyers are scum-sucking bottom feeders. Some of them. Some of them are great. Most of them. But anyway, yeah, I mean, it's just, there's, yeah, I think the best thing you could do is for your husband, because it's not you, you've got to stay out of it. You're going to get, you're going to stir up trouble if you open your mouth. So, um, I would just send him in with his crazy family and say, Hey everybody, happy Thanksgiving. When dad dies, he's broke. You guys are going to have to figure it out. We're not going to do anything. And we, they've had a, uh, three months ago when he had that health scare, they had that brief conversation of, well, what are you going to do? And they turned to my husband asking that question. And the answer is nothing, nothing. Yes. And they, that's, they. Not that they know details, but like we are almost done with baby step two. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Your finances don't matter. It's none of your business. You can't do anything. I'm not doing anything. This is your problem, his problem. I'm not going to do a thing. And your husband just needs to firmly say that. He does not need to take the oldest child role of I'm responsible and I'm going to care for everyone and bull crap. There's nothing to care with. Yeah, the bottom line is this is going to be a thankless job to send death certificates to banks that have money owed to them and say the guy's not going to pay you, he died with no money, and try to convince his drug-induced family, his siblings, that they're not getting anything because they thought daddy had something and now they think he stole it. So the more involved you get, the more screwed up it's going to be for y'all. The best thing you can do is what you said. I don't want nothing to do with this. And I wouldn't even be involved in the will. I'll just say, you know, dad, you ought to get a will and you ought to appoint Bobby Sue as the executor and just have some fun with it. Yeah. Or his buddy. Turn it over to one of the other kids. One of his old buddies to be the executor. Let them deal with it. Yeah. Anybody that wants a job. We don't want the job. We don't want anything to do with this. Right. And that would be hard. We wouldn't want to put that job on someone that we do, that is a good person or care about, because it's a lose-lose either way. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. And also, what are the chances that when this thing finally comes to, and there's a family meeting, that they all go, oh, okay. Like, how much of this are you projecting out into the future and trying to drag it into the present and solve it today? Because you're mad. Yeah. Well, I think it shed some light when it happened, because they did say, well, what are we supposed to do? We already got a glimpse of it, so I feel like my job is to help my husband is to be proactive, but you're absolutely right, I cannot lead this. And my husband has been very firm for many years about certain things, but we thought, okay, what else can we do that's proactive to help our peace of mind? So who said, what are we going to do if he dies? Um, the three that struggle with addiction. Okay. Call all three of them and tell them your husband needs to call all three of his brothers and sisters who struggle with addiction and say, Hey, heads up. I'm not going to be involved when dad dies and he's a hundred percent broke. Yeah. You need to know this. So you need, that means you need to get your crap together. And they may not hear you, but at least you can point back to remember when I called you on this and, you know, and follow it up with an email if you want. So it's in writing, heads up. Dad's broke. And I'm not going to be involved with any of it, any of it, any money stuff when he dies. I'll always love you and you're always welcome. I'll always buy you a meal, but you're not going to get any money from his estate because there's not any money in his estate and I'm not going to be involved. Don't call me. And maybe you can, he can write and say, Hey, after the conversation we had three months ago, it's been on my heart. So I looked into it just so y'all know. Yeah. And that way he's just responding to a conversation that they've already started with him. Yeah, that's a good idea. Right. Okay. But just real simple. I wouldn't try to do a will that has your name anywhere in it. I would leave it alone. Yeah, okay. I appreciate your efforts. You're taking a stab at fixing stuff that's been broken for 30 years. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And a single document is not going to do that. Okay, and also taxes. Do not fall to children, nothing like that. Nothing follows you. Oh, you're. Your husband's name is not on any of his dad's stuff, right? Absolutely not. He asked for that over the last 15 years plus, and he was firm on no the whole time. So I was in a situation not long ago where the 80-year-old passed away renting an apartment with $100 worth of furniture, and they owed $60,000 in credit card debt. You know what the credit card companies got? Nothing. They got a death certificate that said they died, and there's no money, and there's not a thing they can do about it because they loaned an 80-year-old $60,000 who lived in an apartment and was broke. They deserve to lose their butt. Xander is the best place to find term life insurance to protect your family. Visit Xander.com for quotes today.