Parents sue daughter after sister dies and leaves everything to her. Updated!
The emotional toll of losing a sibling is one of the most devastating life experiences. On top of losing your loved one, being bombarded by disputes over money within a family can be absolutely heartbreaking.
One woman was at a loss, feeling that her parents were valuing her late sister's assets more than their relationship with their children and that they resented her for her sister leaving her everything in the will. TIFUwhyyyyyyymeeeeee took to Reddit to explain.
TIFU telling my parents about my inheritance
My 36F sister died 6 months ago from a heart condition. She practically raised me so it’s been difficult to deal with. I’m in my final year of University and have failed every single class this semester. She’d be disappointed but it is what it is.
My sister never married, never had children. I lived with her near campus. She ran her successful side business, I got to help her occasionally as a paid intern. She worked a lot but not to support us, she wanted to retire by the time she was 40. She would’ve been done in 4 years and her heart had to fail her first.
When she died, her attorney read her will to me. She had left everything to me. She had a generous amount of money put away for her retirement and side accounts for various activities for her retirement.
I did not know that she had made several real estate investments so she could continue living a comfy lifestyle once she retired. She left her 2006 Subaru to me and willed our current house to me as well.
She left nothing to my parents but as they didn’t know she had assets, they willingly paid for the funeral and any other associated costs. My sister had no contact with our parents and I’m very low contact. We are their only two children.
At the funeral my parents asked me how I was going to continue going to college without her money (lol, they thought she paid for them. Sike I have student debt.) I told them I’d continue to take out loans.
They asked about my living arrangements and I shrugged, at the time I didn’t know all the details anyway. Well 2 weeks ago, I found out my parents tried to sell my sisters house whilst I still lived there. They brought a realtor and toured our home and everything. It was all on the cameras set up in the home.
When I called them and informed them I’d be calling the police, they explained the situation. I told them it’s my home and it was willed to me. They couldn’t sell it. They were confused heavily. I told them to meet at my attorneys and set a time.
Cut to today. My attorney explained the will to my parents. My mother went white as a sheet and my father was grumbling about suing me for his rightful money plus the cost of the funeral.
My mother began ugly sobbing telling the attorney he was wrong, her daughter would not leave the house to someone like me. The attorney cut the meeting short and now we’re preparing for the inevitable lawsuit coming my way. I just want to sleep and avoid all of this.
Reddit had a lot of questions on this one:
Funerals are really expensive. Like 10k fore a mediocre plot of land and a headstone. If your sister had the cash to pay for her own, you should pay your parents back the cost. No one wants to leave others saddled with the cost of their own funeral.
There has to be so much more. Hopefully this lawyer is an estate lawyer, so they can sort that out. However OP didn’t say anything about the remaining assets that are still in probate.
Also parents are definitely stupid, because the house is still in probate to the estate and it wouldn’t matter if they wanted to sell it or not because only the executor of the estate has the authority to do so.
There’s some more to the story I think, which is why it’s great the OP has a lawyer. If there was an assumption of no will the estate would’ve had to go through probate. The parents don’t just ‘get it’. So it’s extra odd they paid for the funeral and thought they could just sell the assets. Legally that’s a big ole nope from the start.
So, the OP updated a few hours later to explain more details:
Just some added info: mom is a stay at home mum but like the kind who spends her life at the country club, not the involved kind. Dad is a business man and is typically on business trips for weeks at a time. They live, as they call it, lower upper class.
Since this keeps coming up, I stupidly gave my parents a key a few months after she passed. I didn’t know they’d even be trying this until after the fact. The will doesn’t say anything about them but I’m leaving it up to the attorney to figure everything out. I will be paying them regardless for the cost of funeral, celebration of life, etc.
Even with more info, folks were pretty divided on their verdict.
Holy s**t boomers are so entitled.
I think you should’ve offered to pay for the funeral.
Parents become bastards when they think their child owes them. “I took care of you for years you should give me money because I’m a deadbeat” they think that we should drop everything because they birthed us b**ch we don’t own you s**t just because you decided to have sex and keep us DOESN’T mean we owe a favour. Your job is to care for us.
Bro... your parents are narcissistic and disgusting. My dad did that with me, my older brother was the golden boy, do no wrong. It sounds like they hate you from the way they talk, recognize the abuse and cut all ties. I promise you they're hurting you more than you think.
Our OP reached out again after getting more input and had this to say:
I didn’t expect this to blow up tbh, thank you everyone for the support. I’ve gotten to read almost all the comments and I feel a lot less anxious now. I did talk to my professors and 4/6 of them gave me extensions but the other two are being jerks about it.
It’s fine tho. I did sign up for my schools grief group. I just got done changing all my locks too. Thanks to everyone who helped me with home stuff too, I’ll be sure to watch the home insurance bill or get a financial advisor or something.
My sisters degrees and mine are in the same field so I’ll be continuing her business too. I don’t know it’s overwhelming.
And a final update from the OP a few days later with some hope:
Final Update for now: Father sent me a text apologising, said he wanted to sell the house because of the market right now but won’t push me. Gonna see how this plays out first.