'I was named the executor of my dad's will and I'm having some fun.' UPDATED
"I was named the executor of my dad's will and I'm having some fun."
Recently my extremely wealthy father passed away, leaving a trophy wife widow with a daughter from her previous marriage, me (27F) and my older brother, as well as lots of my aunts, cousins etc behind.
Now my father was not a good person by any stretch of the imagination - he was a vain, selfish braggart who liked to flex his money on others. Pretty much evil and Nasty, I know. He wasn't a good father either, and though he never hit me like my brothers (2nd brother passed years ago), he wasn't a good dad either.
After he passed, there was some kerfuffle until his will was found and properly verified. Soooo much shit was flung in this period already, it was insane.
During this period, me and my brother were already drowning in phone calls from 'concerned' family members after my dad's money.
My brother took (with permission) a laptop of my father's to help sort some documents etc and no less than 3 people called him accusing him of stealing from his inheritance, over a laptop worth MAYBE 2k at best. Epic family, right?
I'd been no contact with all of them except my father and brother for YEARS, after various types of issues with them.
From calling me a slut for having a boyfriend at age 19 (by a woman divorced at least 3 times no less) to accusing me of turning two of my nieces against their mother by feeding them when she refused (withheld food as punishment for grades), there is a lot of bad stuff going on and I got out ASAP. Even my father openly disliked a lot of that family.
He once introduced me to some cousins who live overseas as 'Trish and Trixie, the golddiggers'. They both married rich, and he said that TO THEIR FACES. We did not get along :-)
So, everyone expected my brother to be the executor of the will (or a family friend possibly) as he is the oldest and my father's widow, while a nice person, had neither the fortitude to deal with the sharks we're related to, nor the language skills to really understand. Yes, he actually imported himself a wife from Russia. He was that clichéd.
Anyway, to everyone's surprise, the named executor in charge of splitting the assets wasn't my brother, it was me. And man, was I ready to f&&& with my family. I'll spare you the legalese as it was fairly complicated and had lots of clauses and conditions attached, but the idea is I get the final say on what a fair split is and who gets what, except for the preallocated stuff, which is minor.
Everyone was surprised as I'm the youngest and generally stayed FAR away from all the family drama. I think that may be why he picked me? Or it could have just been to f with the family.
He did request a fg gun salute at his funeral, which was swiftly and resoundingly shut down by the funeral service as it was illegal lol, just to give you an idea of what sort of person he was.
Anyway as soon as it got out that I'm in charge of splitting assets, I was DROWNING in phone calls letters, emails, Facebook requests etc. You would not BELIEVE the number of family that suddenly wanted to get back in touch with me and to find out how I've been doing etc.
Not ONE of them remembered treating me badly before either, could you believe it? I must have been remembering wrong because it was so long ago and all that. Gaslighty pack.
Really cringe, the lot of them. Now the will said that I was to split all remaining assets as I saw fit (with a few specific amounts and assets allocated to my brother and my father's widow).
The rules boil down to 'give everyone directly related (my aunts, my cousins, my uncles) something, everything else is optional. Soon as the will was fully read, the calls and messages changed again, and suddenly my aunts and uncles especially were trying to tell me that they'd be happy to help me get a fair split, etc.
They were essentially trying to tell me what to do, and wanted to tell me what would be 'fair' since I obviously didn't know them anymore, but they knew who needed it the most. Spoiler: for each aunt/uncle, it was them plus their kids that needed it most. Surprising, right?
This all got so complicated and so time consuming I had to take time off work just to be able to deal with their sorry asses. I'm only just really getting back to my own work after weeks of this shit.
The main kicker was the widow's daughter. I struggle to view said widow as a step mother because my father has been married many times and they weren't married long at all, but I genuinely like her as a person.
She grew up poor had a more abusive husband than my father before him, and just generally struggled in life and ended up an upstanding person despite that. She has always been a cleaning lady and takes great pride in her job at a hotel, which she worked despite being married to money. I admire that.
Her daughter on the other hand is one of those cringe, trying to look rich when she's poor AF types. We've all seen them. Chavs, if you're British. Trailer trash if you're American. Proleten if you're German.
She started verbally abusing my brother in the process of sorting through my father's physical assets and at multiple points told him he'd be lucky if he got anything at all from the stuff as she didn't think he was a 'good enough son' to deserve anything.
She met my dad when she was 22 btw, so no IDEA what sort of power trip she was on. My brother accepted this treatment, I did not, though I kept quiet. I think she thought it would be her mother doing the allocating, in which case things would have gone very differently.
It took them months to tally up my father's assets (we got the final count of everything a month ago, that's how long it took lol), and when they gave me the list, I realised it was going to be more complicated than expected.
I also realised that while I had quietly put up with my family's shit, I really didn't have to.
Nobody knew exactly what sort of amounts we were talking as while my father had made an incredible fortune through his work (mostly legitimately) he was also a huge spender and it was entirely possible he'd blown it all on some island in the Caribbean or some shit like that (some overseas properties, no islands).
So I looked at the list. There were several properties on there, many of whom specific family members had already expressed their wish to have as their 'share'.
Yeah because clearly my aunt was SO attached to that holiday home in Italy she'd never even been to. That sort of stuff. I did listen to all of their 'requests' mostly for my amusement.
I got a realtor I know to help me put them on the market at the lowest reasonable price, and most already have offers, at least two of which I accepted immediately. As soon as an uncle who's also in real estate figured this out he went BALLISTIC on me.
How dare I sell family property (it's not) how dare I deny people their rightful inheritance (it's not) and why didn't I at least sell through him (yes he was that obvious). I hung up on him and continued.
Next was his stocks, bonds and investments. Guess what happened to them? That's right, sold. Cars? Sold except for 2. Bikes? Sold except for 1. One car for me, one car and bike for my brother. My father's best friend, a luxury car dealer, got my number from someone to complain I didn't sell through him. Dream on mate :-)
I continued to turn everything into cash that I could, even sold some art and stuff that he had, as was my right (and is also fairly common to do as a strategy, or so I've been told). Not all houses and stuff have sold, but I do have a preliminary total that I am to split between the family members. This is the fun part for me.
The widow will get roughly a third of the assets as in my opinion, she deserves it for having married my father. My brother gets about 25% which quite frankly, is more than my father would have given him as they weren't on great terms.
He doesn't exactly know yet, and actually said he'd have been fine with just the car and bike, as long as he could stay out of the drama, bless him. He's always struggled near minimum wage and been bad with money - he might waste the opportunity, but at least he'll get a real chance to improve his situation for once.
Then come aunts and uncles. One aunt I used to like has passed away so she's a moot point, the other one revealed herself to be very nasty and greedy in the last few weeks. What does she get? 10k. :-)
Enough to give her no chance to contest, but an insulting amount off the millions we're talking here. Also, a donation to a clinic for alcoholics in her name, which she is, worth another 5k. Uncle 1?
Misogynistic prick beyond compare. He actually called me and offered to take over as the executor so I wouldn't have to worry my pretty little head over it. Yup, that bad! What does he get?
10k plus a donation made to a woman's shelter in his name, for another 5k. Uncle 2 has kept out of most of this and was on good terms with my father - he gets an actually reasonable sum with another zero attached, and quietly to keep him out of the drama.
He's done nothing wrong, so I won't punish him at all. He is possibly the ONLY one who hasn't badgered me in all this.
Cousins - cousins with kids get 1k per kid more than those without. Base cousin amount will be 5k, plus a 5k donation for a suitable cause. The cousin who abused her kids? Donation to domestic violence org.
The racist cousins (yes plural)? Donations to various international relief orgs and maybe a few local refugee help services. So on, so forth. Each cousin gets a suitable donation in their name to a cause - the policeman gets one to a group investigating police violence.
That one was my brother's idea and I love it! There's about 10 of them, plus their kids who get nothing specifically, as they're no longer mentioned explicitly in the will.
My favourite part is the widow's daughter, the one who got so nasty with my brother. Remember her? Yeah well somehow she got the idea that she is my sister. She is... Not. My father never legally adopted her or accepted her as his child or anything legally binding.
So she's just... nobody. Which means she gets absolutely f all. Not so much as a footnote anywhere, because as far as the inheritance goes, she doesn't exist. Now I happen to know that she's already bought herself some LV bags in lieu of her soon-to-be windfall. She works security in a mall. Minimum wage, I believe.
I didn't tell her myself, just had a notary send her a letter informing her that she was not in consideration and would she therefore please keep her nose out of the business of the legal heirs (aka legalese for back off my brother you bit h). I am sad I didn't get to see the reactions there because the girl has a TEMPER and I would have loved to see her read that letter.
The letters for aunts and uncles etc aren't in the post yet, but I'm SO EXCITED for when they get them. I ran all of this past several lawyers, notaries and even my financial advisor just in case.
They all helped me make sure that what I was doing was above board, I wasn't breaking any rules etc, and that it wouldn't be easy to contest. The remaining money? Well I'll keep some for myself, obviously, but I plan to donate the majority of what's left.
Part of that is some mild revenge against my father too, as he would have rather set fire to his money than actually donated any of it to those in need, and partly its because I'm probably the only one in the family who doesn't actually need his money.
Like him, I made my own fortune, luckily. I wouldn't have been quite as free to snub those bastards if I was worse off, so lucky me. I made sure to allocate myself a fairly small amount compared to my brother (but still enough 00s at the end, don't worry lol) to avoid any accusation of unfairly trying to keep it all for myself.
I also took on myself all the fees etc that come with closing the estate, which naturally I'll pay with my share of the inheritance.
I have plans to donate larger amounts to charities I support anyway, largely animal welfare and a few domestic abuse ones, as once again, I know my father could be quite abusive to his partners and my brothers.
I am also friends with one of his ex wives who is a social worker, and I plan to anonymously donate to her organisation without her knowing as I've listened to her talk about her group's struggles with funding for years and I now have enough disposable cash to really make a difference.
Oh, and the car I decided to keep for myself is likely going to be a gift for my partner who has been listening to me whine about my horrible relatives for the last half year. I don't really like sports cars but he does, so it'll make a nice early Christmas gift :-)
Update to my longer post about how in handling my father's estate. Most reactions from family members have come in at this point, I'm not expecting a lot more to happen.
Most are really funny, a few were almost a letdown compared to what I expected and one made me cry like a baby in public! I'm currently on a small holiday to relax away from all this shit, which is why I've sat down to compile what's happened so far!
Before we give you OP's lenghty update about all of her family members, let's read some of the top responses:
longnectarine writes:
You are freaking SO COOL!! I know what your dad saw in you. The one person who wasn’t going to take any shit from his family. Perhaps it was his final kindness for being a royal f up to your brother.
I had to clean up my dad’s finances after his death too. It’s a shitshow and a decade later I’m still scarred.
I had a moment like this with a brother too. It wasn’t much but it was enough for him to go see his best friend who he desperately missed. Meant the world to him. I still replay that moment. You had that moment jacked up with a preverbal 10k a day coke habit.
Also LOVE you rewarded the widow. Screams the type of pain in the ass your dad was.
Thank you for feeding your cousins. The little one probably sent you that message out of loyalty to you. I was starved and remain mentally devoted to the neighbor who snuck me cookies even after 40 years.
Edit: I should add the amount of mental devotion I’m talking about. I only care about food. It was denied me so much that it was the most important thing ever. I think about food 24/7 still.
When you give food to a starving child, they remember you. I remember my mother’s friend who would have me to dinner a few times a month.
Meant very little to her but to me… she was placed on a pedestal and I’d die for that woman. A woman who barely remembers me. Accept weird devotion from your cousin and know it isn’t about money.
summercream writes:
How did such an awful man marry at least two women with self-respect- a social worker and a full-time maid who kept her job after marry this egotistical rich guy. I hate that he abused his children especially his sons with physical abuse- maybe that abuse is why the brother only worked a low level job later in life.
I hope the OP talked to the widow about setting up a trust for herself so her trashy daughter doesn't get her hands on the money. The OP did a fantastic job in allocating her heartless father's money.
And now, OP's epic update:
My aunt - the alcoholic. She called and CURSED ME OUT over the phone. There were some expletives in there I genuinely hadn't heard before, I was very impressed. Apparently she thinks my father would be ashamed of me, and that I'm not acting how a good Catholic girl should.
Yes, of course my racist alcoholic aunt is religious lol. I on the other hand am not and have never been Catholic, atheist now and I was raised protestant, a decision made by HER BROTHER. But anyway I digress.
I put her on speaker so my partner could listen and we had to mute ourselves because she went OFF for about 8 minutes straight before she finally ran out of stuff to call me.
I tried my best to keep a straight face and asked her if she would be happier if I increased the intended donation on her behalf (in the letter she got it didn't mention the donation amount, just that a donation would be made, also not to where exactly).
Obviously she cursed some more (only about 30 seconds this time) and told me she'd be suing me for this. I asked her to direct the relevant paperwork to my father's (and now my) lawyer and hung up.
2. My uncle - the one who DIDN'T meddle in all this and got a decent amount. He just sent me a WhatsApp msg saying, essentially, thanks and good luck. He's no contact with his siblings now as apparently they tried to already contact him, as they assume I 'stiffed' him too and he obviously doesn't want to be involved. Good guy, got out when he could.
3. My uncle - the real estate guy. He called me a day after my aunt, same day a letter arrived at the notary stating his intent to challenge my executorship. I was waiting for his call and had already spoken to the notary, who told me that while his letter SOUNDED threatening, what he was asking for wasn't even a thing, legally speaking.
He could theoretically contest the will, but not my decisions here. He's not legally entitled to a minimum inheritance as both kids and spouse of my father exist, so the fact that he's mentioned at all is a consideration already. Aka - no contesting possible lol.
Also, funnily enough, his stated reasons in the letter were essentially that I'm a bad daughter lol. Anyway in the phone call he was fake nice, asked if I knew about the letter, if I'd reconsidered, if I really wanted to take us down that road etc.
He asked if I was sure I wanted to ruin my relationship with my only remaining family and so on. I kinda scoffed at that because I hadnt spoken to this man in YEARS before my father died lol.
The family I am close to is my brother and grandma, neither of whom are nutjobs after my dad's money. He went on and on and on about how I probably don't want to ruin relationships I might need down the line and when I got sick of it I asked him what I'd need him FOR.
He kinda stuttered and just said something else about faaaamily, so I more or less said 'no thanks, I'm good' and hung up. Not very satisfying but honestly he was such a drag I just wanted it to end. He called a few more times until I blocked the number. I regret that I didn't say anything idk better but at the time I was fighting angry tears lol. Need them? Jog on.
4. Two cousins - Two cousin who are sisters, one of whom is the one who would starve her kids, the other one is the one who is married to a policeman. They both sent me a WALL of text asking if my relationship with them is only worth that little to me.
I replied with the same msg to both that 1. We don't have a relationship, 2. I didn't decide based on that. Both of them have kids (2 and 3 respectively) so they're getting just shy of what their mother is getting anyway.
I used to be friends-ish with one of them because I lived near her in uni, but that is it - haven't spoken to her since about 2015, and the other one even longer. What relationship lol.
5. A niece - daughter of one of the two sisters above. She messaged me on Facebook and it was pretty unexpected because she had basically f all to do with any of this and isn't even mentioned in the will, it was purely my decision to consider the kids when allocating.
She basically just messaged me that her mother has been going NUTS about all of this and that she's spending all her time raging now, posting on Facebook, crying to her own mother (my aunt), etc.
Very funny. I honestly don't know why she messaged me that, so I didn't reply. She's I think 12-14 now, so who knows, but she definitely didn't seem too mad at me lol. It was just weird.
6. A lawyer - another cousin and her father (real estate uncle) have hired a lawyer who sent me an overnight signed-for letter (strike one, all communication is to go through official channels not my address)...
about how I'm taking advantage of my father's estate for personal gain (strike two, they have no idea what I am getting or anyone else is getting as they've not spoken to my brother or the widow aka the actual heirs, nor do they know my share, etc), and how they want to sue me for emotional damages in the near future (strike three because..... what?
We're not in America. It doesn't work like that on SO many levels). I showed the letter to my lawyer who passed it on to the notary and they both agreed that the lawyer who sent it must have been after a quick buck because there's no way anyone would try to sue for that lol.
He probably just charged them some petty cash to send that letter. It was as far as I could tell an ambulance chaser type lawyer as well! There potentially might be more happening here but as I said - my legal counsel pretty much shrugged it off as a non-issue. Not terribly worried.
7. An aunt - by marriage, not even a blood relative. She didn't contact me directly, but I found out that I'm apparently Facebook friends with her as she's been NON STOP posting those cringy 'cursive writing on grainy flower picture' posts about how nothing lasts forever and betrayal in the family, bla bla bla.
We've all seen that sort of stuff from middle aged relatives, I think. In her case we are talking 3-5 posts A DAY and so many of them are gif animations that sparkle lol. I'm 1-2 more posts off just deleting her altogether. Not a big deal, just a bit funny.
8. The widow - she received the letter as well, personally handed over by the notary rather than mailed as she had to go in for some signatures anyway. She didn't bring her daughter (yay!) but instead said daughters shitty husband (blergh) who explained to her what the letter was saying, and she accepted it without question.
She read through the list of assets, their value, and my decision, and (I was told) she said that she was satisfied with that, and that it was certainly more than she would have needed.
Douchnozzle son in law did ask the notary about legal recourse but he more or less went 'who are you, you don't even go here' and threw him out. FYI the widow signed her acceptance of her share already, so there is now no disputing that even IF the daughter somehow convinced her.
Very low drama and low conflict here, which I appreciate, and I can promise you all she will be more than taken care of as long as she doesn't develop a 10k a day coke habit (a phrase I saw in a prorevenge post that I love lol).
9. My partner - I mentioned to him in passing he'll have to figure out where to park out second car now as we don't have space, and he DID NOT get it lmao bless his idiot heart. He knows I didn't sell a couple of the cars and I think didn't even realise which ones I kept haha.
It'll be another month or so before we can legally take care of all the paperwork etc and the cars actually change hands, so I guess I'll just sign for all of that and then hand him the keys when it's a done deal like in one of those cringe tik toks haha!
And no I'm not filming it, I don't actually have tiktok. Oh and for those who were wondering the car I kept for him is a grey/blue R8 Spyder that I hate already :-) I don't like sports cars but my partner has previously fanboyed over it.
My brother is getting a beamer and my dad's favourite Suzuki bike, both of which he can actually use cause his current car is gaaaarbage. I'm content with the car I have as I definitely didn't care for any of the others my dad had, mostly inconvenient smaller sportsy stuff lol. I'm an SUV girl :-)
Oh, widow doesn't have a license, so no point for a car. Her daughter would have liked a car I'm sure BUT what a shame, she's getting jack shit.
10. My brother - this one was my favourite. I decided to tell him what he was getting myself, because as I said, he was more than happy to accept car + bike and nothing else, as long as he also got some of our father's keepsakes and an old rolex, pretty simple, basic stuff.
WELL unfortunately for him I obviously wasn't having that, and so decided to be dramatic and tell him myself so I could see his reaction. I took all the paperwork with me and met him for lunch. It was like 16 pages.
I made him read them and I swear he nearly fell asleep several times throughout he's NOT good at legalese... or reading long boring texts not to do with his job.
Anyway, he gets to the last 3 pages which list assets AND THIS IDIOT THOUGHT WHAT IT SAID ON THERE WAS THE TOTAL OF THE INHERITANCE.
I totally get the sticker shock of it tbh, it's quite a long sequence of numbers haha. He deadass thought that he was seeing a full list of what I was splitting between everyone, rather than his share.
I don't drink alcohol, but at this point I was considering a shot of vodka or three because.... Bro. Tf. I wanted him to be excited and he was just NOT GETTING IT! I was sitting there, excited as fuck for his reaction and there was just nothing lol.
So I had to tell him very gently that he was looking at his part of it only. I asked what he thought, and he was reading through it again (properly this time lol) and bless him he asked if I was sure and then told me that was more money than he thought he'd ever have.
He's not very emotional or anything so he didn't really visibly react but he just sort of held my hand and I BURST INTO TEARS at the table like a baby. I mean, a waitress brought me some tissues that's how bad it was.
I literally didn't cry this hard when I found out our father had died. We just sat there for ages, me crying and him staring at the papers.
It was honestly a thousand times better than when I finalised my plan for what I was gonna do with it all. At that point it was just a revenge boner but holy shit if could do it again it would be all about that moment with my brother.
When I calmed down I did as everyone suggested on my previous post and asked if he wanted to put it in a trust or just have it all.
He thought about it for a bit and I explained what it would mean, and he said he thinks he'll want a split, so a really decent monthly trust amount, and an equally decent 'I will waste this' cash fund.
The first thing he said he wants to do is go on holiday for a month to Buenos Aires which is random as f, but hey!!! He accepted my offer to talk to my financial advisor who will help him make the actual decision so he'll end up with some 'f you' money and some 'hey, my future is safe' money.
Win win! As I said before, I want to stay out of his decisions there, I'm not his mother and its his money to waste - or not. It did sound like he was going to be smart though, so he's definitely learned from past mistakes.
To be honest I'm not fully sure he has emotionally accepted it yet haha. He did ask about the widow's share as throughout this he and her have had several conflicts I mostly chose to stay out of, but he didn't seem terribly bothered she was getting more - I don't think he begrudges her a 'reward' for being married to our father either.
So that's the gist of it - sorry it wasn't more dramatic, but nobody broke into my house or defaced my car or anything lol. Just letters, insults and phone calls. And one of the best moments of my life with my brother.