I brought my parents to live with me 5 years ago. Dad died last year. Now that I am probating his will my lawyer has given me concerns over my fiduciary duty? I gave up my career and job to do this full time with the understanding that my immediate family would not have to suffer. I had to do this with my parents money. Now I have to worry about being accused of fiduciary irresponsibility? Where do you draw the line? How do you know when you have crossed it? I have always conducted my business as if asking myself, "what would my parents do or think?" Mother has Alzheimer's and I built a house for them on my own property but I put it in my name so I would not have to deal with complications later on. Did I do the right thing? Mother (87) may have another couple of years left and then I will need to retool myself and get back in the job market. With a poor economy and my own age (61) not helping the last thing I need is to be worried about being sued by some rogue family relative and believe me, I have dysfunctional family members. I cant live my life in fear or misplaced guilt and rehearse through constant introspection every decision that I have made over the last 5 years! I know this has to be a somewhat typical situation that others have gone through. What really gets to me is potentially being punished for doing the right thing. My parents have since I can remember told me under no circumstances were they to be put in a rest home and I honored that at a great personal sacrifice on my part and to my wife and children. Of course they are financially in a 'no man's ' land not having enough money for assisted living and too much for medicaid. In fact, I saved them from bankruptcy by stepping in and taking away my dad's ability to write checks to rip off artists that prey on the elderly. He was adding zeros behind his checks where $25 turned into $250! It doesn't take long to loose your life savings under those circumstances. You wouldn't believe some of the things I have had to do or endured to assure that they had the best possible life I could give them. Any advice at all to allay my fears for the future would be appreciated. It is so frustrating that more and more I see the good guys are the ones who suffer while the evil ones get away with murder.
imho you need to get your own attorney and if you haven't opened probate, please please wait to do it. Most states have a long window from death to having to open probate - why the rush? For my first aunt, I was named and it was a total surprise, we were't especially close and it only made sense as I got into her estate (over 4 years too). For most outsiders, my aunt appeared well-off and most assumed there was oodles of $$ and by god they were entitled to some of it. She had one nephew who assumed he would be executor and when it didn't happen made all kinds of noise about billing her estate for all the care he had given her and that she had promised him yadayada and the fact that she had given him $$ in the past showed an existing promise...why didn't we use the law firm who he used to do probate, etc. on & on. And he wasn't the only one.
What the attorney I hired did was do a proactive on the main noisy one. Senor Noisy actually sent me a letter about all the $ he was owed, my suitability, all the work he had done...... What we did was send a registered letter to him, letting him know that he would be getting a 1099 for all the funds she had "paid" him for that tax year and also we would be revising last years tax filings for that too and were evaluating all checks as to whether taxable services were performed to anyone she paid. I'll never forget what my attorney advised me.......be proactive and let whomever has issues with the estate be aware that you were chosen and NOT them, you are driving the bus, period!
You need an attorney who is in your corner if it gets ugly and yours doesn't sound like he is. I did mine as a % of the estate and in the long run was a better deal than by the hour, although I did do alot of the courthouse runs and sitting in probate court rather than pay his paralegals. Still friend with him too! Good luck.