tl;dr; I'm wondering what you guys think and if it's reasonable (or am I being a complete asshole) to act upon the will of my mother who (secretly) is leaving everything to me, and cutting off my sister, leaving me with 2/3 of ownership in family properties. This will undoubtedly completely shatter the little contact I have with my sister. Despite my mother making me promise to act upon it, I feel bad about it.
So I'm not sure if this is a /r/relationshipadvice post or maybe more along the lines of /r/personalfinance , maybe a bit of both. I'm posting here leaving out a lot of family drama and putting a /r/personalfinance spin on it.
So the backstory is, about 25 years ago my dad passed away and my parent's real estate got split three ways between: my mother, my sister, and me. Since my dad's passing the situation is that my mother is the executor of the property for life and we all share ownership, each with 33%. So my mother can basically do everything short of selling it.
The real estate is worth an estimated $1-$2mil. and generates some rentable income ~40k/yr. The are no associated mortgages with it, only local and state tax which in our circumstance is negligible.
My sister's relationship with my parents was always bad for as long as I can remember, in particular with my mom, Over time my sister's relationship with my mom deteriorated to the point that they had a huge fallout, and about 20 years ago my mother made a secret will, notarized and signed by witnesses, that I will inherit everything of hers. Effectively that would give me 2/3 ownership and giving me full control of the property. I've known about it ever since and I never thought about it until recently where my mother's health is worsening.
My sister has literally nothing of her own - she won't be able to live in any dignity on any social security. And more importantly one of my nephew's is disabled and is somewhat dependent on my mother for support. One day he will need some kind of help.
I refuse to go into any kind of partnership with her.
There is no way she could buy me out even at a 50/50 split.
I could probably buy her out, even in a 50/50 split, worst case it's $1mil, and I could put down $500k and finance the rest. This will be costly, more than I'm comfortable with, but it will ensure that I keep the property and my nephew has a place to live, plus the income generated could sustain him and cover any property repairs.
However, if I act on the will, and buy her out with a 2/3 split in my favor, then financially this is much easier on me. Worst case I'm looking at 666k which I could certainly do. Leave the property to my nephew and he would have a place to live.
So what do you guys think? Should I act on this will?
Submitted May 07, 2019 at 12:50PM by __shouldi__ http://bit.ly/2ViS5Ds
