Her Late Husband Secretly Put Her Mother-In-Law In Charge Of His Estate, And Now She Has No Control Over Her Money
This woman spent twenty years with her husband before he was tragically diagnosed with terminal cancer.
And as you can imagine, there is a lot to figure out when a partner is terminally ill. So, they made an appointment to get their estate and wills in order.
“Because I did not want our kid to end up with his mom,” she added.
But, the night before the appointment, she and her husband got into a really big fight. And the worst part is that she does not even remember exactly what the argument was about because the cause was so insignificant.
Instead, all she knows is that her husband– who has a history of anger and control issues– ran away from home as he often did after a fight.
But, instead of going to a friend’s house, as usual, he was forced to go to his mother’s house since all of his friends were asleep.
This alone turned what was supposed to be a “one-night thing” into a week-and-a-half-long stay away from home. During that time, her husband did not even speak to her or their son.
So, if you could not have guessed, her husband ended up going to the will appointment without her.
Then, she also found out that he had changed the beneficiary of his life insurance from her to their son “for tax purposes.”
PhotoBook – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purpose only, not the actual person
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Finally, he delivered the real kicker– he had made his mom the trustee of said money and claimed that his mother would promptly turn the money over to her after he died.
Well, anyway, after her husband passed away, she went to her mother-in-law and asked about the money. But, she was told that the money was for her child, not her.
“Keep in mind; I was a stay-at-home mom– his decision– not to mention his twenty-four-hour nurse, chauffeur, cook, nanny, housekeeper, and more. I had no money of my own,” she explained.
“And even when I worked here and there– at home or during school hours– that money went into ‘our’ account, which I had no control over.”
Thankfully, she did get her husband’s 401K since he was not allowed to remove her from the policy without her consent.
Still, though, she learned that her husband did try to remove her anyway and that his lawyer was apparently continuing to “sniff around it” even after he died.
Plus, she found out that her mother was the one who recommended that lawyer to her husband. Moreover, her mother-in-law was also at the will appointment– even though she claimed she never went.
But, the worst part is that her husband actually named her mother-in-law her son’s guardian in the event she passes away. This was precisely what she had been trying to avoid before the fight.
“So now, she has all of our money and doles it out as she sees fit. She plans vacations for the three of us without my input and uses the trust to pay for them because they are supposedly for my kid,” she revealed.
And even though her mother-in-law will sometimes reimburse her for her son’s clothing or school supplies, the process is nowhere near peachy.
Instead, her mother-in-law stoops to demanding receipts and claims that she has to account for everything– which she knows is totally false.
“The trust is written so that the trustee can do literally whatever they want with the money with no oversight,” she clarified.
“She could spend it all on comic books and bubble gum for herself, and there’s nothing anything can do about it.”
On top of this terrible situation, she also found out who the secondary trustee was in the event that her mother-in-law died, and it was one of her husband’s old friends who no longer spoke to her.
In turn, she basically feels like the money is as good as gone. And for a while, despite being understandably upset off about the situation, she was getting by on social security.
But, her circumstances have recently changed after a series of small disasters occurred in her house.
And since insurance companies are not always helpful, she is now stacked with debt for the first time ever.
This ultimately pushed her to confront her mother-in-law two more times about the trust. Apparently, though, her mother-in-law just shrugs off her concerns and acts like the trust is out of her control.
“I don’t know if she is actually dumb or just playing dumb, but she can absolutely do what he told me she was supposed to do and give me my money,” she said.
So, she believes her mother-in-law is doing one of three things. First, she might just think she is lying about her husband’s wishes.
Second, her mother-in-law might have been in on her husband’s lie about intending to hand over the money and stood by it.
Or third, her mother-in-law has just gone off the rails and is doing whatever she wants.
Regardless, though, she is now just totally lost about how to move forward. She knows that she can go the legal route and likely win against her mother-in-law. However, she is not sure if she wants to open up that can of worms.
On the other hand, she has also considered threatening to cut off contact between her mother-in-law and son– but she also knows that would make her look terrible.
And finally, she is even open to the idea of allowing her mother-in-law to withhold a college education’s worth of money as long as a new trust is drawn up and she is given some control over her financials.
Nonetheless, weighing the pros and cons of all of these options has been utterly exhausting for her, and she has been left wondering how to proceed.
Why do you think that her mother-in-law is making this process so painful? Do you believe her mother-in-law knows she was supposed to hand over the money or not? How would you go about handling this situation?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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