Anonymous wrote:OP again. Not sure why so many of you can’t follow this basic problem. All us siblings got together and mutually agreed to donate $5,000. towards this work, including this one brother. Now all of a sudden this one brother refuses to donate or even reply back to emails. This only forces the other siblings to come up with more money. Nothing like losing your entire family for $5,000.

You sound nutty to drop your brother over $5k. Take it out of his portion of the proceeds and move on with your life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your parents owned a $1,000,000-plus house outright and only had $60,000 cash?

This isn’t unbelievable to me if they owned a house in a gentrifying area for decades.

According to OP, it was actually $80,000*.

I guess I'm just curious if one or both of the now deceased burned through a lot of cash on late life care.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op are you working with a lawyer? I was the executor of my dad's estate and we had to legally wait until everything was finalized before equally distributing the money. Money that was used to cover his cremation and other costs were reimbursed to the person who fronted the money when the estate was finalized. I was also payed a small executors fee which I felt covered the time I had to put in. How did you already distribute some of the money?

This. This. This. YOu don't distribute any surplus until expenses are paid.

It could be that the money that was distributed was not actually part of the estate. It could have been an account with beneficiaries named, for example. Other than that, I would caution OP to leave her sibling alone, for whatever reason, he's changed his mind. The others should make up the difference if they think it's important enough but I caution OP to make sure that the funds given by OP and the other siblings are papered as loans to the estate to be repaid from the proceeds from selling the house. Otherwise, the absent sibling is entitled to an equal share of the proceeds if they are all equal heirs, even if the absent sibling didn't contribute. As well, it's not legal to decide to distribute the proceeds unequally (as was suggested by a pp) in order to benefit the siblings who kicked in and punish the one who didn't.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your parents owned a $1,000,000-plus house outright and only had $60,000 cash?

This isn’t unbelievable to me if they owned a house in a gentrifying area for decades.

Totally agree. My IL's bought a house and commercial property for peanuts about 50 years ago in the Hamptons. Their entire net worth was tied up in those properties. They have cash flow now b/c they had rent from the commercial property for years and then sold it. But if they had not done that they wouldn't have much.

Anonymous wrote:Your parents owned a $1,000,000-plus house outright and only had $60,000 cash?

This isn’t unbelievable to me if they owned a house in a gentrifying area for decades.

Your parents owned a $1,000,000-plus house outright and only had $60,000 cash?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the house is in terrible condition, is it going to be a tear down? Don’t sink money into something that could be disposable. What does a real estate person suggest?

I like the idea of getting a selling price as is which would be the base rate divisible by everyone. If anyone contributes to repairs, they alone split anything added to that base rate.

I was almost hoping for that. Because it’s in a very desirable area every agent in the area says it’ll sell easily with basic cosmetic work. This of course was just prior to the virus situation. Nearby homes sell in the 1.5 million range, we’ll be asking just over a million.

OP we did this 12 years ago. Same situation. It was $25K to clean, paint, empty, clean up grounds, rid house of smells, get rid of everything, some minor but necessary repairs, replace ancient appliances. Odd stuff like venting dryer out the window. Window wells leaked. Stuff like that which was glaring once the house was empty. It did sell quickly however.

THIS.

You sure it's not a knock down, OP? In which case, the extra money you are thinking of spending would be a complete waste, which is probably what your holdout sibling is thinking.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the house is in terrible condition, is it going to be a tear down? Don’t sink money into something that could be disposable. What does a real estate person suggest?

I like the idea of getting a selling price as is which would be the base rate divisible by everyone. If anyone contributes to repairs, they alone split anything added to that base rate.

I was almost hoping for that. Because it’s in a very desirable area every agent in the area says it’ll sell easily with basic cosmetic work. This of course was just prior to the virus situation. Nearby homes sell in the 1.5 million range, we’ll be asking just over a million.

OP we did this 12 years ago. Same situation. It was $25K to clean, paint, empty, clean up grounds, rid house of smells, get rid of everything, some minor but necessary repairs, replace ancient appliances. Odd stuff like venting dryer out the window. Window wells leaked. Stuff like that which was glaring once the house was empty. It did sell quickly however.

Anonymous wrote:Op are you working with a lawyer? I was the executor of my dad's estate and we had to legally wait until everything was finalized before equally distributing the money. Money that was used to cover his cremation and other costs were reimbursed to the person who fronted the money when the estate was finalized. I was also payed a small executors fee which I felt covered the time I had to put in. How did you already distribute some of the money?

This. This. This. YOu don't distribute any surplus until expenses are paid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just tell the realtor the improvements are canceled.

I guarantee the realtor/broker is getting a kick from the contractor. Hell, it's probably her husband or brother in law.

This. Tell the realtor the improvements are cancelled.

What exactly do you feel like you can do with $20,000? That is not enough to do much of anything.

Have you talked to an estate attorney? The $20,000 to each child should not have been paid out yet. You may need those monies for expenses.
Expenses get paid, real estate sold, and then what is left is divied up to the children.

Anonymous wrote:OP again. Not sure why so many of you can’t follow this basic problem. All us siblings got together and mutually agreed to donate $5,000. towards this work, including this one brother. Now all of a sudden this one brother refuses to donate or even reply back to emails. This only forces the other siblings to come up with more money. Nothing like losing your entire family for $5,000.

This doesn't force the other siblings to pay. You sell the house as an estate sale as-is and let the new owners deal with it. Paint and flooring is a quick fix and it will probably be redone by the new owners anyway. You should have not distributed any money until after the house was sold. This is not a donation. This is not a charity. You are fixing it to sell. Take a loan against the house or just sell as is. We bought our house as is. It was rough looking but fine.

After giving each sibling their $20,000. it was understood that we’d each have to contribute $5,000.

Op, you've done a lousy job as Executor. Legal is what matters ... not, what's "understood"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just sell it as-is. Call 1-800-Got-Junk and a cleaning service. That’s what we will do when my 2nd parent dies.

That service very expensive and the finest trucks you will ever see. Use a different service.

SMALLEST not finest

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again. Not sure why so many of you can’t follow this basic problem. All us siblings got together and mutually agreed to donate $5,000. towards this work, including this one brother. Now all of a sudden this one brother refuses to donate or even reply back to emails. This only forces the other siblings to come up with more money. Nothing like losing your entire family for $5,000.

Why the heck did you distribute the other earnings before the estate was closed? Wouldn’t it have been much better to just pay for these fixes (which I find unnecessary, but your choice) from the estate first, get the sale done, and then do a clean distribution?

Anything agreed to 2 weeks ago isn’t relevant today, IMO. Or sucks but he is probably having money issues and needs that money and is ashamed of it.

+1. How the heck is the family going to pay property taxes on a $1m house if there's zero cash left in the estate and the house doesn't sell quickly? OP, how much are annual taxes? I'm assuming at least $10k.