General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: At almost age 76, I just announced my retirement. [View all]Blue_true
(31,261 posts)I went through that process with my parents. Before he suffered many strokes that eventually took his life, my Dad had talked to my Mom about me being the executor of their estate, eventhough I was one of the young kids. After my Dad passed, my Mom talked to me and told me that she had put my name on every property document. It was a very difficult process once my Mom passed, to be grieving and have pretty large responsibilities, not to mention siblings that were fighting over money. You are lucky in one way, your sister didnt cause grief for you and you did what was right by her. I hope that you see your way out of the grieving period at this time, but that journey can take a while.
I dont have children and in some ways I am glad about that, there wont be fights over any material things among any progeny of mine. But my siblings descendants are a different matter entirely. I would not want to give all assets away to charities at death and ignore the financial benefit of my own blood relatives. The way that I see to avoid that will be to establish a Trust and several ironclad rules that will survive my death, as well as chose a relative of integrity as the executor once I am either mentally incompetent to perform that function, or dead. But one thing that I learned the hard way when my Mom passed is that a person has NO idea of how lousy people that were once seen as ethical can be when money is involved (also sex too, although that didnt come into play with my parents estate).