agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear Amy: My husband is the executor of his parents' will.

He is the second of their three children and the oldest boy.

His parents have, at best, a strained relationship with their daughter, “Anne.”

As a result, they have named Anne in their will only to state that she will get nothing when they are gone.

They won’t tell Anne about their choice, but often tell my husband, “You can deal with her!" when the time comes. They say that the look of disappointment on her face will be priceless.

My question is, why can't they tell her now?

I have asked them, and their answer is that it “…has to be a surprise!”

I really don't understand why they can't be the ones who see the look on her face, if that is what is so important to them.

Why do they want to leave the "dirty work" for my husband and destroy his relationship with his sister?

I believe that if she knew now, she would "move on" with her own life, instead of trying to please them before they are gone.

There is no law that states that the contents of a will can't be revealed prior to death, is there?

I feel that they are putting my husband in a terrible position by making him the bearer of their wishes, and that his sister will try to pressure him to change the terms of the will after their death.

It is all very involved, but I believe they would be doing everybody a favor if they just told her what their decision is now, before they are gone.

What do you think?

– Upset In-law

Dear Upset: I agree with you; your in-laws seem exceedingly and unnecessarily mean-spirited regarding their final wishes. Their glee at disinheriting their daughter seems to leave out the fact that they will not be there to see the look on her face when she learns of their choice.

They are also putting your husband in a terrible position.

Executors should not disclose details of a will without permission of the testator (the person writing the will).

If your husband is inclined, he could choose to renounce his position as executor. There is a fairly simple process by which he could do this.

Imagine the looks on his folks’ faces if he simply declined to be part of their cruel game.

But regardless of what you (or I) think, how he handles this should be up to him.

https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/askamy/s-2709942?fs

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, these people are horrible. And since it's obviously not a secret what they're doing, LW could have saved a lot of trouble and told Anne already.

But with that said, let me be quite blunt. If my partner's parents were pulling this crap, and my partner's response was anything other than refusing to go along with it and limiting contact as much as feasible/ethical, then my partner would be looking at life as a single guy.

The only alternative I would accept is "pretend to go along with it, actually gift Anne her fair share of the inheritance after the bastards die", and even that is a stretch. Because one thing is very obvious to me, and that is that Anne is not the one at fault for this "strained relationship", and obviously has earned her inheritance by not telling them to drop dead already.

Yeah the only thing that I think should be happening here (if the husband didn't outright say no) was if the husband said "once they are gone I will evenly distribute the money after executing the will" and get the other sibling on board to do this.

since it's obviously not a secret what they're doing, LW could have saved a lot of trouble and told Anne already.

Yes, this.

I don't know where Amy is getting the "executors shouldn't reveal" stuff--it might be a rule for lawyers who are executors as part of their job as lawyers, and know what's in the will because they drafted it, but that's a special case. It's not a rule that's binding on anyone who is told "I'm naming you as m executor."

But even if there was such a law, the LW isn't the executor. So, either the husband told her, but is hesitating to talk to his sister, or the parents told her, and neither of those would be a reason for her not to talk to her sister-in-law.

Yeah, the response to parents saying "You deal with her!" should be "Okay, I'm going to give her a fair share out of mine anyway, so it shouldn't be a problem".

That should solve most of your problems in one blow.

But with that said, let me be quite blunt. If my partner's parents were pulling this crap, and my partner's response was anything other than refusing to go along with it and limiting contact as much as feasible/ethical, then my partner would be looking at life as a single guy.

Christ, seriously.

Are these people for real? I'm having trouble imagining this bullshit.

WOW.

Yeah, if my spouse were a party to something this gleefully cruel, even if it were just by knowing about it and not telling the target, especially if the target was someone they supposedly loved, that would have a very, VERY significant impact on our marriage. I mean, Jesus, at a bare minimum, I couldn't be in the same room as these horrible people.

every time I run into one of these Super Weird Will Advice Columns, I am more and more glad that, like normal people, anyone I might inherit from is very up front about what is in their wills.

Not that everyone is always HAPPY about what is in the wills, but everyone has time to get their feelings, if they have any, out of the way WELL in advance.

This is one situation where it helps not to have that much. My mother's assets largely consist of: the house. It's going to my sister, because she's the one who'll keep paying the mortgage and who has already invested quite a lot in replacing the roof.

There's also: one opal ring, which probably has a cash value of nearly nil, and which my mother has variously promised to EACH OF US (wtf, Mommy) but which my niece is actually keeping in her physical possession, so it'll probably go to her. Because she has it on her.

Given that the LW phrases it as "his sister will try to pressure him to change the terms of the will," I am willing to bet that for all her hand-wringing she actually wants her family to get that extra one-sixth of the estate.

Oh, well, then she deserves to be married into this awful family, and she will absolutely get what's coming to her.

Ugh. UGH. I'm sure that part of their glee is in torturing everybody, not just Anne.

Also, LW doesn't seem particularly invested in Anne actually getting a share of the pie, just that Anne should know immediately instead of later, and that Anne trying to insist on a fair portion would be unnecessarily mean to the husband.

Where is kid #3 in all this?

Hiding from his relatives?

God, the in-laws sound vile. I like other commenters' suggestions that LW's spouse can always distribute the inheritance more fairly as the executor, or for that matter just give Anne some of his share once the will clears. And... yeah, it does sound like LW is more okay than the commentariat here with the substance of the will, as opposed to how it's being carried out.

Also, thing I learned from writing and more to the point researching Knives Out fanfic: in some states, including Massachusetts, there are certain descendants you have to name in your will in order to exclude them or they have a claim on your estate regardless of your wishes. So the naming in the will isn't necessarily as malicious as it sounds, though from the way LW describes the in-laws, they sound like people who absolutely would do that for funsies regardless of what the law says. (Also, the only times I've been involved with wills, pretty much everyone did know what was in them in advance, so I have no idea what the rules of confidentiality are for executors in any state.) And also LW states that Anne is trying to get along with her parents in hope of the inheritance and that is probably part of what the in-laws are enjoying about the scenario, her trying to get along with them for the sake of an inheritance and them knowing that none of her efforts are going to do any good--- it's at least some "dance my puppets dance" and I think Anne has every right not to get along with them!