I found this info on the internet.
Disinheriting other beneficiaries - If the original owner adds one child to an account but has other children they want to inherit the account, then by adding one and not all of the children's names the owner will have effectively disinherited all of the other children. And even if the surviving joint owner agrees to give the other children their fair share of the account, care must be taken to avoid any gift tax consequences.
My father always insisted that EVERYTHING would be divided equally among his children, He was adamant about this, -specifically to avoid the pain we are discussing here. His Will explicitly backs this up.
However, for convenience sake, he added my sister's name to his account as "Joint Tenant With Right of Survivorship" (so she claims -but will not allow me to verify without a court compelled accounting), leaving me out completely.
His accounts were fairly large.
To make matters worse, I am sole caregiver for our mom, who is NOT a part of the estate (divorce) and I desperately need my share to continue to care for mom at home, I get NO help at all from my sister or anybody, and the frustration of having to try and give mom the best possible care on her small budget alone, while knowing that I should have so much cash coming to me is starting to have a bad effect on my role as caregiver, it makes it all so much more difficult and heart-breaking than it already is or than it has to be.
What was intended as a loving gift that my father was so proud to be able to give to me has become an infuriating, hurtful, frustrating and crazy-making burden due to my sister’s petty greed.
I will continue to slog through with mom's quality of life as my priority, and try to put the pain of the problems with dad's estate aside. I just can’t afford, financially, mentally, or emotionally, to face a long, expensive painful court process right now, but I do plan to proceed against my sister as soon as I can, if only to stand up for myself and my rights, and to defend my father’s final wishes.
We figure that if there is enough in the account when mom dies, Sis can take us all to a nice restaurant. Otherwise we'll go to MacDonalds and raise our plastic Coke cups in a toast to a great mom.
Mom "loans" money to the brother who is disabled. All the rest of us are glad we don't need that kind of help, and we'd never expect him to repay the loans. The amounts are small, to get him out of pinch when his car breaks down, etc. She is not supporting him -- she couldn't affort to.
None of us have ever expected to inherit anything, except items of sentimental value. The more I read these forums, the more I am very, very glad about that.
See All Answers