I think it is really sad and frightening concerning the actions and attitudes some siblings take when they know mom or dad is about to or has passed away. The fangs come out, blood is drawn and the war is on!

My mother and father left my family a hot mess in the form of an irrevocable living trust. These are trusts that are written by lawyers for lawyers. During the four years I've been at it, I've uncovered one fraud after another. Many, many so-called professionals have bled the trust estate dry leaving our family little to nothing.

That said, I never planned on receiving a dime so I'm not disappointed but am surprised at the number of blood sucking leaches involved in the whole mess. That said, I now know more about the internal operations of a so-called "irrevocable living trust" than I thought I ever would.

In contrast, a revocable living trust (RLT) does just the opposite. With an RLT, the person setting up the trust is also the trustee, is still in charge, and names who's in charge after they die.

My mother had an RLT. Everything she owned, except retirement accounts was in the RLT, and I was the successor trustee. I had separate accounts at every financial institution she did. With the trust document and a death certificate, I had all the assets moved to my accounts. I did all this literally the few days after her funeral before driving back to Florida. She had a will, but there was no need for me to probate it. I did use an attorney to sell my mother's house, also in the RLT. but that was cheap. In Floriduh, you can even sell a house without an attorney.


https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/what-is-a-revocable-living-trust-en-1775/#:~:text=%20There%20are%20three%20roles%20under%20a%20revocable,revocable%20living%20trust.%20They%2 0are%20called...%20More%20

My mother talked my aunt and uncle into getting an RLT's. My aunt outlived my uncle. They have two kids who don't get along. My aunt's estate was small, mainly just a small cinderblock house in the 'hood. The kid named as the executor in the will and the successor trustee in the RLT handed everything over to a lawyer. Of course, he unnecessarily probated the will and that made things drag out for a year and racked up billable hours.

I misspoke. The trust was revocable until my father died at which time the trust become irrevocable.

I'm dealing with a similar situation; both ethically and according to the Professional Rules of Model Conduct of the Bar Assocation, the lawyer should have NEVER taken the case. His greed got in the way of his ethics.

This brings his/her Legal Malpractice Insurance policy into play. He/she has literally committed MALPRACTICE. Also, when anyone sues a lawyer and sends his/her Legal Malpractice Insurance company notice of the lawsuit, there is better than a 50/50 chance this/her insurance company will jack up his rates. I know of cases where the lawyer BEGGED the plaintiff to drop the lawsuit due to ever increasing legal malpractice insurance premiums.

By the way, when you have the opportunity, pick yourself up a copy of the Professional Rules of Model Conduct for your State's Bar Association. You will be surprised at what you will find in there. I always keep mine on the ready.

End-of-life is just too hard for everyone: the one passing on, and the ones left behind.

I can think of no solution to the pain.

__________________
All lives won’t matter until Black Lives Matter too. Along with Asian lives as well.

“No, I don’t take responsibility at all.” - Don Trump

“The buck stops here.” - Harry Truman

Black Votes Matter.

Lawyers are a necessary evil. Like an ER doctor, if you need one it's because you earlier somehow ****ed up. My bro-in-law, cousin, and cousin's wife are attorneys, so I get free legal advice.

I used to believe in lawyers until my father dumped his lawyer-created, lawyer-controlled so-called 'revocable living trust' in my lap. It's been a legal and financial nightmare. Money was drained from the swamp from the get-go with little left for the family.

After hours of digging, I found http://www.heirs.net which lists two books the owner of the web site wrote concerning financial abuse of trusts. Some of the stories will peel your hair back; losses for ONE family, ONE trust and ONE estate running into hundreds of millions of dollars. And it wasn't just family trustees doing the steeling, corporate or professional trustee firms have been equally as greedy.

All of these stories have one thing in common; they trusted a lawyer or a law firm to steer them straight.

BTW, you have to go to archive.org and type in http://www.heirs.net to get the old web site up. I believe the original owner of heirs.net is either deceased or very old and gave up the web site. His books and the real life stories of obsessive greed live on.......

One major problem I've located in the revocable living trust documents is this: They made the successor trustee both trustee and beneficiary.

This violates the The Law of Trusts which has existed for thousands of years. A trustee should NEVER benefit from his own financial decisions unless there are NO other beneficiaries. NEVER. Even then it is bad practice. Of course, law firms who create these bogus trusts will defend their malpractice to the death.

Sounds good but I am married to a woman who thinks Martha Stuart is a slob. Getting her to downsize is out of the question.

As long as you're O.K. with it that's great .

My Sweet loves to decorate and hide normal life things like family photos, books, towels one actually uses, all the stuff one normally keeps in the medicine cabinet and on and on...

Her house looks like Better Homes & Gardens, mine looks like Ma & Pa Kettle's digs .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

So many situations out there. With almost none being identical. Almost impossible to comment on them because of the unknowns. .