h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*hides* just in case


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I have a friend (my age) that is the legal godparent to his brothers two children.

Aw, honey, that's not what I meant

*thwacks Tac*

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Tac, why did you hide Justin Case? Was he likely to be elected to take care of Paper Baby?

Amy, looks like you just had a case of the thwack Tac attacks.

people seem to come down with that a lot


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But you're just so thwackable

And those sparkly eyes can't ward me off when you're there and I'm here

Ooooooooh, the sparkle!

Not to mention the sparkling conversation....
yadda yadda yadda yadda

right right


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*giggles*

*thwacks*

Thwack?

Condisidering that this is Tacsat*duck* we're talking about, shouldn't it be *quack*?

HI Amy!

This is indeed a difficult subject to broach. ER was right on with what he said. What isn't stipulated in the will will go to probate. Probate can take at the miminum a year before it's closed. During that time, house payments (if he had a house) yard care, utilities, have to be paid. The house can't be sold during that time, nor can you access any of his bank accounts unless you are made executor of the estate. Now some of this can be avoided if he adds your name as signator to his bank accounts, or leaves the money in the form of a CD with you (or some other heir) as payee. Then those things won't go into probate. Same with the house. If it does go to probate, then you end up paying a lot to the state.

It's easy to do. You can even buy an estate planning kit and do the work at home on the computer.

Me, personally, I want the government to get none of my stuff when I die...they get enough from me in the form of taxes as it is.

Depending on the size of the estate, the government will take their chunk of it anyway.

Even if you do have a will, it can still take well over a year, maybe even 2 years or longer to settle an estate, again depending upon how complex the estate is, how much money is involved, etc. My Dad died 16 months ago, and there's still no settlement in sight, since the government is going over absolutely everything possible to make sure they extract every penny they possibly can from it.

Lady Scott

and on the other side of the coin is the estate which I am currently executor of, which should be finalised in the next 1 or 2 weeks.

Admittedly it wasn't a very complex estate - my friend gave all his assets away well before he died last April - and all I've really needed to do is gather all his money together, put in his final tax return, pay the outstanding bills and cancel a lot of memberships. I'm now waiting for the princely sum of $800 to arrive and then it's all finished.

I don't get a thing from Dad's estate (the contents of the will is no secret), that all goes to Mom. It's just taking so long and is so confusing to her that I know she can't wait until it's all done. There have been a couple of times when it looked like it would be settled within the next couple of months (at the time), only to find out there was lots more to be done.

I think Mom is planning to have a new will written so that it (hopefully) won't take so long next time, but I wouldn't count on it helping one bit.

well hopefully it will work out better for you LS

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