Ethics Question

Depends what's out for grabs I suppose. And a little back story on how much off the grid the other siblings had been.

Intuitively I think everyone feels the 1 sibling deserves the most of it, but lately I've started to question everything lol. And if they were wealthy, they should have spread the wealth before they die, to much go to waste if they don't I think.

Would need a lot more info, then learn some about all the siblings and their situation, then think for awhile, maybe have someone smart make some algorithms.

Top of my head I would toss out 70% to the one sibling, 15% for the other two just for lulz.

This is a pretty good question

Well they'll have to sit down and decide for themselves. If the cross country siblings want 1/3 then they should have 1/3. If the local sibling argues then he is way out of line and it would create a disgraceful situation. If the cross country siblings decide that the local sibling should get more then he should get more. I would think that if the cross country siblings are decent then they would suggest that the local sibling should get more, but it's their decision.

Depends on how well or not-well off the other 2 cross country guys are doing.

You said ethically, I'm not quite sure if ethics are even a definitive thing, but I would weight the inheritance towards the least talented.

That said I think the person who took care of the chores should be compensated.

Sounds weird to say "compensated" in an ethical question.

I would estimate how much the local sibling spent, substract this from the inheritance (give that part to the local), and split the rest equally

i think a helpful determination would be the quality of care the sibling provided, as well as the time and cost involved. There is also a question as to what the parents / mother likely would have wanted (suppose it was fairly well known the mother intended to donate her net assets to charity, etc).

I would think that a reasonable starting point in any negotiation would be for the local sibling to request reimbursement for the care, and then split fairly liquid assets evenly.

The local sibling who put time and money into the house should receive a greater share in the house, proportionate to the value added - or possibly inherit the house outright.

The two siblings living outside of the local could have good relationships with the parents, or there could have been a serious falling out. Those would be contributing factors to distribution, I think.

Most ethical way of dealing with it would be an agreement and concrete understanding between the siblings for money to go towards all the costs that need to be covered. Probably a % to cover "sacrifice" on part of local sibling, that's assuming he had to sacrifice some labor time towards care, which seems to be the case. And that's assuming siblings can reach agreements/understandings. "Rational" behavior ;d Which is the most important thing to get an "ethical" solution.

If it's about the % due to each person, then the specifics need to be defined into any agreement. Financial status of each, which i think is the most important. Keep the family "balanced". Factoring that whoever might be getting "more" is going to use it in a +EV manner. And, my observation is that alot of times, death of ones parents tends to make one more "responsible" and conscious of your future decisions. Not always the case, but can be.
Assuming in this case that local is the least financially successful, and that he took care of all the process of the death, legal work, real estate and all successfully , you can assume if he does get larger %, he probably will use it in a EV+ way.

Insufficient information.

33% a peice is the only fair payout IMO. I feel this is similar to when business owners try to sell their business ex. Someone puts in 80h a week for 2 years, and 300k of their own money into a starting a business which now generates 70k a year. Now they are tired of doing it and try to sell, everyone offers them 140-150k, this person is insulted and feels they should be compensated (who gives a fuck).
Taking care of your parents is not a paying job, just like they were not being payed to raise you. It's a descion people make based of the goodness of their hearts. If they took care of you and nurtured you when you were unable to do it for yourself (age 0-18) hopefully you return it to them in the last few years of their life. Putting a price on your time while taking care of family members is pretty awful.

What does the will cover anyways?
The gov gets 50% off top of all assets then give 2 weeks notice that division of remaining property etc will be handled. See if 3 siblings have agreement to terms handling remaining 50%. If disputes arise split value and give government any remaining unequal portion in which gov can sell to highest bidder

There should be a rough estimate of what the local sibling spent on the bills and the house, etc. Time spent and emotions spent on the parents are not included, since you can't put a price on that, unless you're a business that already lays out those types of things before going into business with someone else.

After you get a rough estimate of what was spent on bills and such, then it gets tricky. There's probably 1 sibling who has control over the will, which means that person will have more power than the other two. This sibling is probably the one who was taking care of all the bills and stuff you listed.

If the 1 sibling who took care of everything has control over the will, I'd expect that person to take at least 50% of the total inheritance for themselves, which includes 25% of the cut plus an additional 25% of the cut that is for all of the time and stuff spent on the parents, and then divide the other 50% between the two other siblings. So, 50/25/25.

This all gets tricky, cuz we, the LP community, don't know shit about who has control over the will and how much the other 2 siblings stayed in contact + went to see the parents + how much of a scumbag they are, etc.

To sum this up, it all comes down to who has control over the will. From there, it comes down to how generous they are. If the sibling who took care of everything for the parents does not have control over the will, expect* that sibling to get much less than what they deserve, followed by feeling cheated.

Well all the comprobable big things could simply be deducted from the total inheritance, things like hospital bills etc, but a compensation only because he cared more about his parents its not fair and one cannot expect to be compensated for it.

On April 03 2013 23:41 barbieman wrote: Insufficient information.

The whole point of a will is to determine how to dispose of a person's assets after death. If this will doesn't cover that, it must be the shortest will in the world. If there isn't a will, an estate gets split equally to all children.

Also, the government only gets a portion of the estate in estate tax if the net taxable estate is over a certain value (currently $5.25 million).

Finally, there would be a way for the child that is handling the affairs the estate to get more money than his siblings. This is by taking an executor's commission. In other words, the executor can get paid a fee for handling the matters of the estate. If the will does not name an executor (again, if it doesn't, worst will in the world), the child handling the affairs can get the court to assign him executor status.

1/3 for each? One would be a douchebag if he takes care of his parents and then expects a bigger % of the will because of that . Probably just deduct the hospital bills before splitting it.

TT summed it up pretty well imo

TT absolutely nailed this one.

On April 04 2013 08:04 Spitfiree wrote: 1/3 for each? One would be a douchebag if he takes care of his parents and then expects a bigger % of the will because of that . Probably just deduct the hospital bills before splitting it. TT summed it up pretty well imo

The real Douchebag(s) are the sibling(s) that didn't do anything during the process and expect a to receive the same %. The person who took charge shouldn't even have to bring up the subject, should be the others who would propose him to be compensated while the others were using the time for paid labor. One misconception is that often, people don't see much of a value in non-paid labor work comparatively with paid labor.
Dunno how many of you actually have been in such a situation, i haven't, but i know someone close who had, and "taking care of your parents" in such situations, is alot more complicated then it might look. And the real douchebags, are the ones that don't help out with the process, usually because it drains an enormous amount of their own time for any given reason (actually paid work, family etc). Which really doesn't make them douchebags because they should realize at that point that it does take alot of work, and that they didn't do it themselves for that reason, and should compensate their sibling who did commit to the duties.

We are not talking about a +10% share, more like a fee, a 1-2% type thing, "compensation", which is only fair.

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On April 04 2013 09:04 uiCk wrote: The real Douchebag(s) are the sibling(s) that didn't do anything during the process and expect a to receive the same %. The person who took charge shouldn't even have to bring up the subject

With the little info given I gotta say this sounds about right.