I detest these financial battles after someone has passed. But it did put me in shock, being her primary caregiver for ten years. I lived with her, got her through emergencies, kept her quality of life as high as possible. She felt special until the day she died. I have MS which made some things difficult, but it always was right thing to do. My sister saw her one or twice a year, out of obligation. How should I approach this?
I am a conservative-minded respecter of wills. If your mother wanted to be an out-and-out [word], then in my view that was her right. But the law, in recent years, has not been as inflexible on this point as it used to be; and your mother didn't take thorough enough pains with her cruelty. We don't know what her intentions towards you were. She didn't trouble herself to say.
Don't go to court. You haven't the stomach for it, the stress would do your MS no favours at all, and anyway it's too much of a gamble.
But without even forming that intention, you do have a case and your representative could use that to come to terms with your sister. You wouldn't even have to be involved.
It actually isn't about the money. It's about recognition of a wrong done to you that can be partially put right, if your sister chooses. You can still leave it up to her: you don't have to instruct your lawyer to pursue it beyond a certain point, which would be putting a proposal to her and suggesting she consider it for reasons X, Y and Z.
The thing is. Your sister's blithely saying "this is what mom wanted" really isn't good enough. What your sister is saying is that "mother treated you extraordinarily badly and in tribute to her I am going to do the same."
But your sister is under no obligation to do that. Your mother could do what she wished with her money. So can your sister. I think it might be worth suggesting to her enlightened self-interest that she consider the justice of the thing, and that you let a lawyer do that for you.
I can't imagine KeepingUp's mother ever having been pushed around by *anybody*. Normally I would rather admire that.
I happen to agree with your sister that the sooner that house is shut up and sold off the better. In my personal view, you too can't be got clear of the past fast enough. But is it where you are currently living?
"keepingup
Nov 1, 2018
Thank you so much. I have lived in this home all my life and love it...."
see a lawyer immediately. Everything that I have read states that you must be named as disinherited because otherwise means carelessness by the attorney who wrote the will or trust. This also explains the attorney's confusion about who you were. https://www.cnbc.com/id/100424947 https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/estate-elder/b/estate-elder-blog/posts/can-you-disinherit-an-adult-child