This is my first opportunity (???) to make funeral arrangements and tidy up bank accounts, etc. "all by myself". (Maybe that means that I'm a grown-up?) I must say that it helps to keep one from thinking over-much about the loss of a loved one. There aren't a host of other advantages to these details as far as I can tell.
Let's just take the chats with the attorney as one example. He met with Dad and I a few days before Dad's death, and he was rather non-committal about whether or not it would prove necessary to probate the will. A few days after Dad's death, the attorney and I met again, at which point he was thinking it was likely (but not certain) that we'd need to probate the will. If so, he suggested we try to get to the courthouse to file the paperwork before I make the 450-mile-or-so drive back home.
A few days later (this morning), I called him to provide some of the information he requested. After hearing what I'd learned, he reassured me that probate would be absolutely unnecessary. In fact, he implied it would be possible that we'd be able to settle everything by the end of next month. Pretty cool, huh?
Just before we were ready to say "goodbye", I made a colossal mistake. I asked the attorney how we would handle 2010 & 2011 taxes assuming Dad was to receive a refund due to overpayment of taxes. The attorney told me that this would almost certainly mean that we'd need to probate the will.
When I met with the accountant last week, the accountant told me he expected to have tax paperwork all ready for me to sign today. I called him to see if we could get the answer to the "refund vs no refund" question, but so far he hasn't returned my call.
And as I think back through the conversations the attorney and I had today, it occurred to me that he said something really strange: he said it had been several years since he'd run into a situation where someone bequeathed an estate in which there was a refund from taxes that somehow complicated the situation.
Oh me oh my. It seems to me that an attorney specializing in wills and estates would be quite familiar with this situation.
I have no clue what the outcome will be, but I've spent several hours making no headway at all. Proof of the accuracy of the statement I made early on in this post: "it helps to keep one from thinking over-much about the loss of a loved one".
So even in the midst of what could be an irritating situation, there's something to be thankful for, huh?
;)
Hi Sue - been there, done that! I had to get probate for my husband's will solely to get access to a small amount of savings he had in a bank deposit account. The legal fees for that, plus the cost of me making a new will, exceeded the amount recovered.
ReplyDeleteBut as you say, all the flapping around does stop you curling up in a dark corner.