Kentucky Armory Club

My Mother died on June 29th 2017. I have not mentioned this because it a personal private matter but something has come up with her Will that I want to pass along to help someone else avoid the heartache and issues that my family is now facing.

I have 3 siblings, all older than me. My oldest brother (64), my sister (61) and my youngest brother (59). When my Father died in 2010 his Will was up to date and on file at the attorney. My youngest brother was the Executor of the estate. We experienced no issues and all the siblings came away with no hard feelings.

My Mom died just over 2 weeks ago. We found out yesterday that the only existing copy of her Will that can be found dates back to 1991. In this Will my oldest brother is named as Executor and my sister is "back-up". Why is this a problem??
- Mom divorced from my Father back in the early 80's. She remarried in 2011
- After she remarried she updated her Will and named by youngest brother as executor. My youngest brother remembers this and her husband remembers this. No one, not my brother, her husband or the lawyer can find any record of this updated Will.

Why is this an issue??

- Because my mother remarried after the 1991 Will was drawn up her husband effectively became her beneficiary, for her entire estate. To Bill's credit (Mom's husband) he wants nothing from the estate and has told the lawyer that the siblings are entitled to everything.

- My oldest brother is a musician who now splits his time between living in Kentucky and living in Florida. He is due to return to Florida in late August and will be gone for months (snowbirding). This will greatly complicate any of the financial matters of my Mom's estate that will need to be addressed. My older brother (Randall) wants to pass the executor duties to my younger brother but the 1991 Will stipulates that the duties must go to my sister if Randall cannot fulfill the duties. To make matters even more goofy my sister wants to pass the executor duties to my younger brother (who handled my Father's estate) but the 1991 Will has no provision to do so!!!

Please, please, please check with your parent(s) and make sure their wishes for their estate(s) are up-to-date and on file. Make sure you have a copy and make sure that the lawyer has a copy.

We'll get thru this but I do expect there to be some complications. Complications are not what you need when you are dealing with the death of a parent.

Sorry for your loss, BK. My wife and I just had this very conversation in the last couple days. Currently, we do not have a will. That's going to be rectified very soon.

I'm sorry for your loss. Ive been after my brother to draw up
A new one since my divorce. This just reminds me to get it done sooner than later.

Very sorry for your loss. I deal a lot with settling estates and if things are not up to par the waters become muddy quickly. I hope this works out quickly for you all. Sounds like your siblings are in order but the paperwork isn't. Sometimes the court can be petitioned to over ride the executor orders in the will of all the successors agree and sign the paperwork to do so.

Sorry for your loss.
The only thing worse than will issues is a bad executor. I was 17 when my dad died, the will gave the executor/ trustee a lot of freedom on setting up a trust for me and my sis and how long for the trust to last until we were old enough to get it.
Long story short, the executor/trustee died 7 years later and he didn't do any paperwork. Never field any taxes, created a trust and kept most of the papers in a shoe box.
So the 2nd in line trustee got to clean up the mess. At least he was good, he is CPA / partner with MCM at the north end of the 2nd street bridge. It took him 4 years to get it settled with the IRS and the return still had some holes in it where we didn't know where money came or went. It cost me $150k in back taxes and fees.

Sorry to hear of your loss BK. My dad died with very little in the way of a "will" just a hand written note saying everything went to his wife, my stepmother. His children essentially got nothing. She did give us each a token check, which was nice, though. Lessons in making sure your will is up to date, too, not just your parents'.

Sorry BK.
My mom passed in 2011 and her Will was rewritten about 4 months before she died. If she wouldn't have had it redone, then I'd be stuck in a real mess. Luckily she had hers notarized and signed by a witness so when we went to court the judge had no issues.

Sorry for your loss BK.
Thanks for looking out for the rest of us

Very sorry for you loss Brian.
VERY good advice. Sounds like you and your family are handling the situation much better than most... My dad and mom's sides of the family have been nearly perfect examples what to do and what not to do. My dad's parents had everything planned to a T. Wills 99% up to date and as they wanted (even though a change was made that no one knew a out that potentially could have made things real messy) and everything went pretty smooth. Funerals preplanned as they would have wanted them and paid for. There were very little disagreements on anything and they were pretty minor. My mom's parents didn't plan or pay for anything and all has been and still is a mess even though there was MUCH less to argue about. 100% absolutely nothing was prepared for. No funeral plans, no will, nothing... My mom and her sister that were always close essentially haven't spoken but a few times since my grandmother's death 2.5 years ago and they still have nothing worked out and neither want to deal with anything. Which is basically only a little debt and funeral expense and a one time decent house that's had zero maintenance for like 25 years now and is a quickly becoming a shithole. Seeing all this go on, my mom (62 in 2 weeks) and her sister (57) STILL have absolutely zero prepared for themselves also.
Good or bad preparation in these situations can and do make or break lots of families...

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I'm sorry for your loss.