PLEASE, EVERYONE, get your affairs in order, if you can!

[cpbaby]

Just venting a touch and maybe someone can use this as a warning......ARGH!!





My MIL is dying. She was diagnosed 4 years ago with Congestive Heart Failure and due to her not taking care of herself, is pretty much to the end. She has been hospitalized in some fashion for the last 4 weeks and possibly wont be able to go home again. Her doctor says she should NOT go home again, but since she is of her right mind, he cant legally force her to a nursing home. HOWEVER, he is trying to build up her strength via a rehab center and then sending her to a nursing facility with the therapy available she needs. I wish him luck with that, but whatever. He has told us straight out that one more incident like this last one will be the end of her.

My DH is an only child. (lucky me, huh?) He is also 25 yrs older than me. Therefore, I have a step-daughter two years older than me and a step-son 8 years younger than me. They are ALL in major denial. They are all convinced she is going to pop up and be perfect again. The only grandchildren that is preparing is our 13 yr old son. I think our 3 yr dd is better prepared than my SD.



Because of this, my MIL named her best friend as POA.....my DH is wishywashy and will do whatever the loudest voice tells him to(I mean whoever is yelling the loudest, not the voices in his head). My SD is a BIG believe in recusitation at all costs. I am not. I actually am completely in line with my MIL's wishes, but if she names me POA, my SD will FREAK. My SS is....odd, so that was not even an issue.



OK, all of that is neither here nor there, really, BUT here is where its getting ugly.



Apparently, my MILs fianances are a MESS....I mean she owes everyone and owes them alot. She has been borrowing money from finance companies for everyday things, such as eating out every single night and buying magazines and things from QVC and not making the total payments. She has put a lien on her car and her washer and dryer. She has used every pre-approved credit offer ever received in the mail. She owes money in dribs and drabs to EVERYONE. I worry she has a lien on her house, but havent found that out yet. She has no will, she has no life insurance(she drained it years ago via loans against it). She is in constant danger of utilities being turned off. When my FIL died 8 years ago, he left her close to $100k, but that is gone now. She sold their house, bought a smaller one, took the difference and did who knows what with it.

Her finances are her business. I know its her money, but HOW did she get in this mess? I do not care if it takes every penny of her estate to pay everything off, as far as that goes, but GEEZE, she has known for several years that she is facing death and she has done NOTHING to help things. WHY wouldnt you at least TRY to set things right before you die? She told me yesterday(she doesnt know that I know about the money problems) that she was never one to leave a mess for anyone......I agreed, but in my head I was :eek:!



Yes, I have my stuff in order. My DH is another story, but I do. I know exactly where my life insurance money is going, who will have custody of my children with a back up "just in case" three castrophes back. I have a will and I may not have pre-paid my funeral(thank GOD, the only guy here who did the pre-paid is now in prison for embezzling and draining those accounts), but I have my wishes written down and with my life insurance policy.

[papadsgirls]

i feel for you. when my father was diagnosed with cancer he cleared everything to the Hilt. We didn't have to worry with anything. just making him happy. good luck to you.

[irishchick]

yikes
maybe she isnt of sound mind as much as you think
im sure in her shoes, which none of us are.....she prolly thinks , im dying, so why care about paying for those shoes i bought or for my visa..etc..she might not be able to rationalize or even care the way you and i can. she knows she is at the end, and you cant get money from a stone per say. im having trouble saying what im thinking, but do u get my drift.

she might not be as rational as she normally was before coming to grips with the fact her time is limited and facing death. kwim? she just may not care anymore.

ill be prayin for her that she doesnt suffer and that everything gets straightened out. i feel for you. i know my gparents had all their affairs in order, they passed away, and my parents were POA and it was STILL hellll to deal with being poa.
very stressful, this time, will keep you in my prayers, hang in there!

[Pepsi4me]

My Mom died at age 54 from cancer 8 yrs after Dad had died. She had spent what was left from Dad's insurance policy & was getting money from the state because she could no longer work. Well my oldest sis was the beneficiary on her life insurance. After Mom died Sis called the life insurance company & then she called us to let us know that Mom had cashed out her life insurance 2 yrs earlier about a yr before she found out she had cancer.
Needless to say we were shock! None of us were in any position to pay $4,000-5,000 for the funeral & casket.
So she had to have a funeral given by the state but we still had to come up with $1,500. She had to have a very cheap casket & we couldnt do anymore than that.

We were very shocked that she had cashed in the life insurance & caught off guard about it. At the time she was living with some real a@#holes & some slimy relatives. She was drinking alot but she would not listening to anything we said.





Moral of this story is Make sure she still has a life insurance policy.

[buglebe]

My brother in law ,77, is doing the same thing. I don't understand what happens, how these people get credit continuously and what happens in the end. My bil left a home where we had him very comfortable living. He had his own apartment. It was a government sponsored home and he paid according to his income. It is one of the nicest places to live in his town and I would have been very happy to live there. He decided he didn't want to live there, he was unhappy there after being there about 7 yrs. I understood some of the problems but they would be the same anywhere he lived. I told him repeatedly, before he let his apartment go that he could not come here to live. My husband has alzheimers and I wasn't going to take on another person to take care of when I have health problems myself. He immediately came here, had a neighbor break in a window and was here in our house 3 days before we got home from out of town. I told him he couldn't stay so he got on an airplane and went to Charlston, South Carolina. He moved around to several places, we were told by one friend he keeps in touch with. He is now in Orlando as far as we know. I know that he is maxing out his credit cards , not paying and going on to the next one. He is living in a motel. What happens when he dies I don't know. I do know our name and his sister's name are no where in his stuff. He doesn't want us to have any dealings when he dies. So what happens? Thanks to anyone who can shed any light on this.

[SLance68]

Well as for the maxed out credit cards - let them max them out - they get written off when the person dies and they are not charged against the estate. As for the Uncle - he will be burried or creamated by the county if no family can be found.

[tljohn123]

Well as for the maxed out credit cards - let them max them out - they get written off when the person dies and they are not charged against the estate. As for the Uncle - he will be burried or creamated by the county if no family can be found.


That is NOT true! If the house is worth x amount of dollars, the creditors CAN come and get whats owed---in Illinois, it's $50,000. So if there is an estate, they can and will come after it. It doesn't matter what the POA says. Sweetie's mom died and was in the same situation. Because there was no estate and there was a lien against a house that wasn't worth much at the time, the creditors wrote off everything.

I am an absolute believer in taking care of everything before you pass. I don't want my death to be a burden on others. In my case...the only things I have worth value is just sentimental btw---is my grandmother's cameo necklace. And I don't have any children, but most likely it will go to the first great grandchild (my niece).

Good luck cp...it sounds like you'll need it.

[mommyof1]

We were very shocked that she had cashed in the life insurance & caught off guard about it. People are sneaking, even if you think you know them. My husband's life insurance is in my name, meaning he can not make any changes without my permission. I am the owner of his policy. I am also the beneficiary. So even if he quit making the payments, they would contact me immediately and I could make them, if I wanted.

I feel sorry for you because your MIL sounds manipulative. You will have a lot to go through once she dies too. It sounds like you are the rock in your family.

[hblueeyes]

cpbaby you must be a long lost relative of my hubby Mom. She had heart problems as well. She was always dying but lived 20 years before she finally died. She went through money like water and rarely paid her bills because her kids always bailed her out. She irresponsible and manipulative as well. When hubby number3 died he left her over $250K from various means, life insurance,pensions,stock etc. She claimed to have gone thru that rather quickly. After she died though we found out that 2 of 4 daughters got not only the house but $100K each. My hubby got nada. I could care but she always said he'd get the money she owed him when she died. He was hurt by it. My MIL owed everyone as well but she did have her funeral prepaid. Let the family fight it out and stay out of it but also do not be a dummy and believe everything you are told either. If the family starts asking for money for buriel expenses decline. The government is not going to lave a dead person lying around. They will get buried.

Me

[kyswpgrl]

I was thinking any of their debts got written off when they died, but I guess that depends on what is left behind.


I have a will and I may not have pre-paid my funeral(thank GOD, the only guy here who did the pre-paid is now in prison for embezzling and draining those accounts)

That guy took money from my aunt and also one of my stepmom's relatives. They both had to testify at his trial. My uncle's funeral was not prepaid, but the guy told my aunt if she paid it all upfront in cash that she got a discount. She did, he pocketed the money, and then the funeral home tried to get payment from her months later. Everyone always trusted that guy.

[mommyof1]

The
government is not going to lave a dead person lying around. They will get
buried.



So true, I never thought of it that way.

[PrincessArky]

I am sorry for what you and your family are going through and I have a bad feeling that you are gonna be stuck with dealing with all the creditors in the end. When my dad died I had the fun part of dealing with them probably more so because I have bigger balls than my mom lol. I would simply tell them that there was no estate simply because they were in a long line of ppl to pay and that there was nothing paid for in his name. One place he had borrowed 6,000 from and they were of course pissed and I said well you told him that he was too old for the credit life plan so you should have told him that he was too old to borrow the money. The only one that I didn't deal with was Sears and they got my mom she had to give them back things like a window ac and a push mower I told them that I would have told them to kiss my butt

[YankeeMary]

Well as for the maxed out credit cards - let them max them out - they get written off when the person dies and they are not charged against the estate. As for the Uncle - he will be burried or creamated by the county if no family can be found.

Not that you could stop them, but this is wrong on so many levels. No one should "max out" credit cards that they don't intend to pay off. When these bills are written off, they hurt others that do pay their bills. The credit card companies will not lose money, if they can't get it out of the one that owes it then they will just increase rates etc...to get their money.

[cpbaby]

Its getting uglier by the second............

My MILs friend, the POA, is doing an inventory of the house and garage at my MILs request....makes sense to me. She takes a room or two a week and goes through and makes a list. Then she takes the list to my MIL and she tells her what she wants done with it, such as the bedroom suit in the spare room is supposed to go to my 3 yr old. The wingback chair is going to my SD. The washer and dryer is going to whoever wants it and if nobody wants it, it is to be sold or donated to Goodwill. SO on and so forth, you know?

Yesterday(Saturday), the friend calls and asks if I have been over to the house in the last 24 hours. Ummm, nope. Neither has my DH. Apparently, she finished up a room Friday morning, went into the next room, looked around and thought, Yep, this is where Im going next. Yesterday morning she went in to get my MIL some clothes and noticed SOME THINGS ARE MISSING....this cant be good.....