My husband(H) is executor of his Mother's estate, who died in Florida, January 2020. His sister(S) and her husband refuse to move from the home. H paid the power bill, lawn service, pest control e.t.c, while S paid the water bill. In September 2020 she was given a notice to vacate, or face eviction. S did not move and H did not follow through with an eviction. H continued to pay the bills to maintain the value of the property. The house was listed May15th 2021 and sold. S was given 2 weeks to move, by Jul 1st 2021.
When did these expenses (power, water, e.t.c)become part of the estate and when did they become the sister's responsibility. At time of Mum's death, notice of eviction, or sale of the home? H needs to know legal responsibility of the estate to know how to equally divide the proceeds of the sale between his brother, sister and himself.
On the side: Emotions are running high, death of Mum, pandemic, S's refusal to move, and need for closure of estate. H's brother feels his portion of the estate was jeopardized by S's actions.
H is trying to leave emotion to the side and do what is fair and justice. He investigated selling the house right away. Everyone's grief, the pandemic and his sister's stallings and refusal to move prevented him from listing the house until May 15th 2021. S was notified of the pending contract and its demand, that she move by July 1 2021. She has made no effort to find lodgings.
Due to early covid travel restrictions, the brothers were not able to travel to the home right away. Sister was told to sell contents of the home(jewelry, furniture e.t.c) and to keep records. It is unknown if she sold the property or for how much, she kept no records. She did verbalize she sold items in the beginning, though she never said for how much and now denies selling anything, nor can produce any property. The brother took a few pieces of furniture. Can or should this even be considered as part of the estate to divide at this point?
Thank you in advance for any help,
Desperate for fair resolution
Who was paying for the bills on the house before Moms death. I would think once Mom passed the responsibility for paying bills was sisters. But since DH chose to continue to pay them. hopefully out of the estate money. If out of pocket he is entitled to his out of pocket when the audit is done on the estate. He will get what he paid out and then the proceeds will be split 3 ways.
I see a problem in the estate paying the bills on the house when sister is living there reaping the rewards. IMO, those bills should be deducted from her share of the estate.
I think with sister your going to need to have her walked off the property by the Sheriff. At the signing of settlement there will be a walk thru and if the contract with the realtor is like mine that house has to be clean and broom swept.
You need a lawyer to get this all to run smoothly.
It's too bad we can't go back in time, or else someone could have told H to tell S that if she and her husband wanted to live there, the utilities would be put in their names, plus they would have to pay rent to the estate. Instead, they were allowed to live there for free (which wasn't fair to H and his brother).
You had better get them out of the house if you want to sell it, because I don't think there are a lot of people around who are willing to buy a house where someone is currently living and has not shown the slightest indication or willingness to move out. It will be tricky to get them out, because they aren't paying rent. If they were supposed to pay rent and then stopped, you could get them evicted. State laws differ regarding getting rid of people who don't pay rent. In New Jersey, you can't evict them. You have to eject them. I don't know how it's done in Florida.
H should have gotten a lawyer ages ago, like right after he became the Executor. A lawyer will know how to get rid of people who have been getting a free ride.
I'm trying to audit the estate for him. I didn't realize the difficulty he was having with the record keeping.
It's all there, just in a jumble of bank statements and receipts. I guess it's me that wants to keep emotions out of it. Haha! When I asked my husband what was considered an estate expense he couldn't decide what would make everyone happy. I kept telling him, to just do the right thing, everyone's happiness is their own business.
The bills you are speaking of belong to the estate.
Sis should get an attorney. Is H interested in being fair and helping her? As a disabled child of mom's she may very well be entitled to remain in the home. But, yes she would have to pay the expenses.
In the end, the bills will have to be paid and the house sold, and Sis and H will split what's left after all the bills are paid -- including fair payment for H's work as Executor. Make sure he keeps tab of his hours spent doing the work.
I wish you had told us Sis was disabled and DH may have Dementia. You should not be doing this without a lawyer. You can get all the bills together and let the lawyer sort it out for the probate accounting. His services will be deducted from the estate. I did probate up until my brother didn't want his inheritance, the house. I needed the lawyer to put it back into the estate. He took over from there, he also was the lawyer for the sale of the house. His services were included in the accting. What was left, got split 3 ways. It will be worth the money so DH does not suffer from more stress.
If Medicaid is involved, Sister probably wouldn't be allowed to remain in the house because she can't pay the bills. You have to prove you can pay bills and keep the house up to be able to remain in it.
If yes to the above, and the buyers does a walk-thru, which is part of the Contract, and they notice the house is still occupied with no plan for Sis to move, then that can become a real problem.....
The Buyers of the house can sue for "breach of contract" and it will be the Estate that gets sued, not Sis. Usually the Buyer will ask for their "earnest money/downpayment" to be return along with any other expenses they had during the process.... such as the fee for the home inspector, cost for putting their names into utilities [some utilities require a fee].... they might already have furniture on the truck ready to move in, thus a large expense.
Then there is the domino effect.... if the house doesn't go to closing, then the Buyers may have to postpond the sale on their own home, and that buyer may have to the same thing, etc. etc. etc. If the Buyer was renting, chances are their landlord has a new tenant for that place, etc. etc. etc.
Handling an estate where someone won't leave a house is like dealing with quick sand. One sinks deeper and deeper. And now, possibly, the Buyers are sinking along side with the Estate.
Hope this all gets straighten out so it is a win-win situation.
When someone dies it is the job of the executor to gather together EVERYTHING that is a part of that estate, including clothings, furniture, jewelry, etc and to make an inventory. If sister was told to sell things and then did it improperly there will be little proof in court of what was done, who did it and how they may or may not have enriched themselves.
This basically is why the executor goes to a lawyer, gets his papers, and applies lock and key to home. With a Sister who will not move out then yes, there is an eviction. And yes, it is carried through. If it is NOT carried through then that is over and done and losses are losses to the estate.
In fact it can be a mess. Some members of the family can bring suit against the executor saying that they did not protect the assets of the estate, and etc. So it can be a real mess. I hope that won't be the case for you. Fair resolution is a RARE thing in a troublesome family.
If hubs was / is paying any of these costs himself, he needs to be filing his own claim against the estate for all payments made. It would be a claim filing for Adminstration & Management of the estate. If he had to travel in, then he should do a separate MIE (mileage & incidental expenses) claim as well. He has a probate atty, so I’m hoping that this has been done? If not he should get those in ASAP & ideally before the Act of Sale….. which should be in just a few days, right? Really help him get on this ASAP so it’s ready to get filed at the courthouse this coming week or early in July. They need to be filed and in the estates file before any distribution is done. All costs he paid personally get paid to him from the estate now flush with house sale $ but it need to be delineated that it’s not inherited but reinbursement & that what the Claim filing does. There is no rush to do the distribution like in July, personally I’d wait at least 90 days from Act of Sale to do the final distribution.
That Sissy paid the water bill, well imho, this is likely a small amount of $ to be dealing with in the bigger problem that seems to be on the horizon…… that Sissy & her husband won’t leave.
Please please reread Freqflyer post, it brings up super important points.
If she’s still there for the walk thru, I doubt the sale will happen. There will be loads of drama from all this. The potential buyer can seek their own action against the seller. Freqflyer is spot on that they can sue and it will be suing the Estate and your hubs personally as well. If the state allows “opportunity lost” type of action as well as breach of contract, they can file a lien on property. Not just a lawsuit but a lien. lien will kill any future deal, yeah absolutely kill any other deal and you’ll be lucky to get out unscathed. It’s a tight real estate market right now, buyer and their Realtor are gonna be more than unhappy if that sister is there and obstinate and they cannot take possession of their property. They are going do something about it and whatever they decide to do about it lands in your hubs lap as he is Executor.
If your hubs as the Executor did not do what was required to have her evicted and if this was due to him maybe having dementia, it’s morphs into another set of problems. He should have resigned as executor; there is an attorney who could have taken over. I’d be concerned that the current atty is over dealing with hubs as hubs won’t do what’s needed or is not following thru on actions needed.
imho you should definitely be worried. Can you join him this week? can you encourage him to do the follow through needed? Will he?
Sissy was beneficiary on a life insurance policy mom left solely to Sissy, right? Sis is good on cash & her & her husband lived rent free for ages. Hubs needs to get over feeling sorry for her. Yeah she provided care & companionship but she benefitted from situation as well. Moms dead, Covid concerns have abated, so everyone needs to move out and move on.
also IMO forget abt jewelry / furniture. Hubs should have done an inventory of assets as part of probate process and household items, jewelry, etc would be listed. Unless hubs as Executor in writing had an agreement for Sis to sell items based on inventory, and she agreed to it in writing as well, otherwise it was his responsibility to deal with moms assets. If these items were not already included in an inventory of the Estate & entered in probate, they kinda don’t exist. It’s another thing to show he did not do his duty as Executor should others (like his brother) bring it up. B/c of this, I’d forgetabtit.
Please let us know how it goes this week.