Yesterday was a succession of meetings with lawyers and bankers. They were nice enough people, but I now have a clearer picture of what hell would be like. It’s forms, forms, forms, the clicking of computer keyboards, mysterious requests, and a lot of passive butt-sitting. I did close out several bank accounts and converted them to checks that I’ll deliver to another bank in Minnesota.
And then…my mother had a half dozen annuities, investments that we’re in the process of notifying the holding companies that she’s dead, which triggers them to send out forms to all of her heirs who then have to fill out pages and pages of information about themselves, provoking them to vomit forth checks. Progress was made.We have begun the process of untangling my mom from the grasp of capitalism.
Today, I have to deal with the DMV and realtors. Abandon all hope.
PZ wrote: We have begun the process of untangling my mom from the grasp of capitalism.
I reply: I wish you didn’t have to drown in all this abusive bureaucracy. But, that is the essence and desire of crapitallism. It is so nice that you have posted many of the good memories. It is sad that is temporarily negated by the brutal reality of the process you must endure. Hopefully none of the other heirs will throw a wrench in the works and it will all be over soon, so you can get back to ‘abnormal’
Best Wishes from all of us at The Arts In Arizona
In my district, the National Association of Realtors sends out campaign material for Republican candidates. I fear you are lost dealing with them.
It could be much, much worse.
Just be glad she had a will and that you (PZ) are the named executor in that will.
Just be glad that there are no (apparent to outsiders) legitimate doubts about the validity of that will, ranging from “not executed properly” (fortunately, Washington courts are extremely skeptical of merely “arguable” challenges to execution) to “under the undue influence of someone who benefits from that influence.”
Not entirely sure what can be done to ease the grasp of capitalism in cases where the deceased was free to make any investment choices they liked out of many thousands of different options.
In the UK, the government does have a “Tell Us Once” scheme where you just have to send the death certificate to one place and they will notify all the different national and local government agencies (pension, tax, benefits, blue badge, passport, election, etc.) of their passing, and that certainly reduced the amount of paperwork in my dad’s case, but we still had to handle notifying and dealing with the financial institutions and private pensions ourselves.
Of course, the UK doesn’t have 50 different state governments all with different rules and regulations to deal with too (though Scotland and Northern Ireland are different from England and Wales), which I am sure complicates things, so even if there was some kind of national probate scheme that financial institutions could join, I suspect the disparity of state regulations would make it very hard to implement.
We’re also fortunate that we’re not having any internal squabbles about the inheritance. We’ve all agreed to simply liquidate everything, and that I then split the pie equally.
Hey, I just got back from the Auburn DMV, and…it was painless! I took care of the transfer of title, etc., in about 20 minutes! I wish everything else went so smoothly.
“I did close out several bank accounts and converted them to checks that I’ll deliver to another bank ”
This thing baffles me the most about the US financial system… you still use checks?!? on paper?!?
I live in the NL, but a couple of years back I had to make a payment to the US IRS. The instructions were to send a check… I went to my bank and they said “whut?!? those haven’t existed for 20 years now!” Now that sent me down a real rabbit hole of figuring how to transfer money internationally…
You probably had to make sure you had enough death certificates to send to each of these fine institutions.
Yes. And some demand originals, others accept copies. I also have to show up with “Letters Testamentary” to prove that I’m authorized to be doing this work.
I went through it with my folks, since I’m The Responsible One. I’m almost at the age where my kids will have to do it for me. Fortunately, I have wonderful kids. But THEY’ve been getting direct mail from AARP for a while.
That said, it’s a First World problem.
Yikes! My brother has been dealing with this for our dad’s estate for seven years now. He’s semi-retired, but doesn’t mind doing this. It will be a shit-show when mom goes. The final reckoning…
My mother died last year, and my sister (as her oldest child) is her executor. She died in July (one week shy of her 86th birthday) and the just past first week of October (this year later) was the week all the paperwork and transfers were completed.
No writing and sending of cheques involved (the U.S is amazing in how backward it is about such things), and I don’t think we ever had anything like the hell of forms P.Z describes. My mothers probate and realizing of assets was complicated by her and my father establishing a trust thirty years ago – which they did intending to simplify their affairs but which it turns out causes problems when the executor isn’t a trustee (as it turned out my brother and I were the trustees when mom died, just an accident of timing due to other trustees pre-deceasing mom).
I don’t know how relevant this is for people in the U.S, but in NZ (and likely elsewhere) make sure if you’ve a family trust (that will be wound up on someone’s death) their executor is a trustee.
My parents estate took over 2 years to resolve. My parents had investments across 3 different banks. Two of them processed the necessary paperwork in less than 6 months. The third refused to accept my driver’s license and passport as ID. It took a banking royal commission to shift them. Virtually all of the banks were exposed for deliberately delaying processing of paperwork relating to deceased estates in order to continue profiting from their usurious fees. The irony of this is that the bank in question was originally set up by an enlightened government to control the outright bastardy of other banks. It did this very well until the conservatives decided to deregulate the banking industry and sold it off to their tax-dodging, predatory corporate mates.
The royal commission identified several criminal practices involved. Some of the banks have been fined for them but none of the real criminals who were in charge have faced anything approaching justice.
I hope you fare better.
The reason for checks in this instance (inheritance attorneys told us) is because it’s harder to scam. There is a careful and deliberate delay each and every time.
Yeah, I’m constantly being asked to show my ID, my letter testimentary, and my mother’s death certificate. It makes sense to me as caution to prevent the elderly from having their savings cleaned out.
Next step: we have signed up a realtor, tomorrow we bring in a crew to haul away furnishings we don’t want. I also bought a bunch of CO2/smoke detectors because…my mother didn’t have any functional detectors in her house! If I’d noticed earlier I would have done that long ago.
Wow. There was nothing like that hassle when I executed my parents’ estates, 20 years ago. Dad went first, and Mom just inherited the small part that wasn’t already jointly held. Three years later, Mom died and it all passed to me (only child). I hired an accountant to do her final income taxes (I decided that how much the estate was responsible for that year, and how much was on me, was more than I wanted figure out), but otherwise I just signed the papers my lawyer handed me, and waved death and probate certificates at bankers. Most of the assets were transferred by just opening new bank accounts in the beneficiary’s name, and moving them over. I suppose it helped that by that time they owned neither a residence nor a car.