Oh Mom, why did you make my brother the executor? UPDATE

[dogmom]

I’m going to be charitable and assume my mother made my bi-polar brother executor of her estate because she didn’t want to put it on me because I’m out of state. My brother that will drop off the face of the planet for months to years at time. I love him, but just managing his own stuff is enough for him. So she died in April. Has he sold the townhouse that isn’t worth a ton? Nope, because it needed work. Bought a bunch of stuff, did some stuff, and nothing since June. Now says he has some mystery illness. Has all the tax stuff. Pennsylvania is one of 5 states that has inheritance tax. You could have $100 in a checking account and you would still pay taxes on it. (Only people with money that have trusts avoid it, go figure.) I flew down in November to talk to him about this, he didn’t meet with me for days, then only for an hour. The 9 moth filing deadline is coming up in 3 weeks, or we pay penalties. I cannot submit the taxes because I’m not the executor. The only thing I can do is sue him, which I wouldn’t do and isn’t worth it. Now I’m spending Sunday filling out forms and sending PDFs to him with the information that he has that I don’t to fill out highlighted. I would have hired someone last July and been done for this.

AND…WE STILL NEED TO SELL THE TOWNHOUSE!! And he wants me to give him money for half the expenses. I just can’t right now.

UPDATE:

Shockingly enough my brother did not file the taxes. Turns out he wasn’t paying the mortgage. I have not idea if the house is being foreclosed on. He does accept now he can’t do it, but when I text him (because he doesn’t like to talk on the phone) I get the “Well, I have good days and bad, so a I could if…. Yeah, like on his bad days he can’t even reply to a text or read an email. He is incapable of doing this. He has agreed to hand over executor to me. Right now we are stuck because he needs to get THREE a documents together and get them to the lawyers I just spend 7k hiring so they can file to make me executor. Heck, he doesn’t even have to get them to the office, he just needs to have them so I can send a courier. Nope, he says he will do it, then I get text “today is a really bad day”. I am going have to fly down there to pick up 3 pieces of paper from a pile, if he lets me into the house. (His house, not my mother’s.) my mother’s house is empty. I was able to contact the HOA for my mom’s townhouse and find out she was a year behind and they were about to put a lean on it for fees. I paid that. I don’t even know who she has a mortgage with and they won’t talk to me without proper paperwork anyway, so there is nothing I can do until I get my brother to sign an agreement. But to get the agreement to sign I need those 3 documents. It’s so maddening. I’m just trying to sort this out so I don’t owe thousands and thousands of dollars. If we break even I would be thrilled.

[bisous]

Oh wow. That sounds like a nightmare! If she was trying to save you a hassle it doesn't seem like the tactic worked very well! I'm so sorry. Sending prayers of strength!

[mmsmom]

Does he want to do it? Usually there is a provision for a back up or a way for him to appoint someone else. If he doesn’t want to do it then I would ask him to appoint you to take over. If he wants to do it then I would try to explain to him that if he doesn’t meet deadlines then any penalties will come out of his portion. I’m sorry you are dealing with this. It’s a tough situation.

[dogmom]

Does he want to do it? Usually there is a provision for a back up or a way for him to appoint someone else. If he doesn’t want to do it then I would ask him to appoint you to take over. If he wants to do it then I would try to explain to him that if he doesn’t meet deadlines then any penalties will come out of his portion. I’m sorry you are dealing with this. It’s a tough situation.

There probably is a way, but that would involve one of us driving to the courthouse and paying hundreds of dollars. The system is pretty screwed up in PA. I don’t think he wants to, but he feels he has to, and if I press him on it there will be friction. The biggest thing is he wants to fix up the house before selling it. I just want to sell if. He’s got access to the house, I don’t. I could make a big deal out of it, but I don’t see that ending well. Mostly I’m just worried about him and his physical and mental health. He’s already offered to pay the penalty, but I don’t want him to feel like a screw up.

I managed to do most of the tax stuff in an afternoon, it wasn’t that difficult, she didn’t have much. I sent the forms to him. 80% done and he has to put in numbers at don’t have and send it off. He can manage that much. It’s just if things go to far down he freezes up and needs to get restarted. It’s mostly if I had been in charge I would have hired a lawyer and and accountant and it would be done by now. We would have gotten less money, but I just don’t care. The reality is an extra 10K for him is what he lives off of most years, so it matters a lot more to him than me.