When they died, they left behind five children and a three-story mansion filled with surprises.
Their deaths were surprising enough in themselves.
Mid-afternoon rowboat ride in Mississippi. It wasn't far enough away to be anything more than a day trip, but they never made it home. Their three sons, who still lived in their hometown, convened on the house that day for supper, but found no one inside. A wait (worth it for my great-grandmother's biscuits, I hear) left them alone for several hours. By then, it was time to call the police.
Police later searched the lake for bodies. They found nothing except the rowboat floating alone, one paddle some 500 feet away, drying in the stifling Southern heat. I like to imagine that the humidity wasn't nearly as bad then as it is now.
A. Advance Directives – a way to satisfy the requirement of consent when the principal can no longer physically consent. Three types:
1. instructional directives – living wills; specify either generally or by way of hypothetical examples (Medical Directive) how one wants to be treated in end-of-life situations or in the event of incompetence
a. DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) – common form of an advance directive
2. proxy directives – health care proxies and durable power of attorney; designate an agent to make health care decisions for the patient. Agent’s power does not expire with the principal’s incompetency.
a. “durable” power of attorney – survives a principal’s incapacity
3. hybrid directives – directs treatment preferences and designates an agent to make substituted decisions
There was no will. People expected one or the other to go, but not both. Not like this.
A. Probate and Nonprobate Property
1. probate property: property that passes under the decedent’s will or by intestacy
2. nonprobate property: property passing under an instrument other than a will. Distribution of nonprobate assets does not involve a court proceeding. Nonprobate property:
a. joint tenancy property (real and personal)
i. bank accounts, brokerage and mutual fund accounts, and real estate often held in joint tenancy
b. life insurance
c. contracts with payable-on-death provisions: pension plans, tax-deferred investment plans (IRA’s, etc..), stock custodian accounts
d. interests in trust
3. You can bypass probate with a will and go to probate without one.
B. Administration of Probate Estates
1. Purposes of probate:
a. provide evidence of title transfer to the decedent’s heirs or devisees
b. protect creditors
c. distribute estate
d. promote finality
2. Three common ways of avoiding probate:
a. taking title in joint tenancy
b. creating a trust during life
c. designating a payable-on-death beneficiary in a life insurance contract or other contract
My grandfather never touched his parents' things after their deaths. His siblings never did, either. Not that they didn't want to, but they never really had the chance. Before the legal document was even examined, one brother died in a car accident, a sister had a heart attack, another brother was murdered in his home, and the last sister went to the asylum.
He was the only one left, and he left everything as it was.
The house, easily the largest in the town, quickly went into disrepair.
And yet, he wouldn't touch it. Even though he was living in a house on the river less than a mile away. After he married my grandmother, she often made attempts to claim some of the house's content, like an incredibly old gramophone and ancient porcelain pitchers, but after that she couldn't convince him to do any more.
He did one thing, and that was to farm in the garden right outside the door.
When I visited, I'd never seen a house like it before. I was used to Disney World, stucco, and brick. This wooden thing was completely foreign to me. I'd seen things like it before, but only around Halloween.
"There's a haunted house here, Mom?" I asked.
"That's where Mamaw and Papaw Higgins lived," she told me. I was confused, both because I called my grandparents Mamaw and Papaw, and because I couldn't believe that old house was part of the past I didn't know. My cousins and I played in the gardens, hiding amongst the stalks of corn, always in its great shadow.
The house was a sort of blight on the incredibly rural town. Quaint houses in a row, little gas station that sold everything from hot dogs to clothing, post office...and then, that.
That house, everyone called it. Dry, brown wood, with all the paint having fallen off long ago. The barn next door was overtaken by kudzu and falling to pieces, and vines covered the entire side, weaving in and out of the exposed wooden boards. You could practically see through the hulking beast in places.
I never got to go inside, even though we all desperately wanted to see what antique treasures we could find. If I could, I would, but like everyone suspected that my great-grandparents' death was the result of outside causes, so was the death of their house.
Arson brought it to the ground two years ago. The town's one-person police force never found out who it was, much like no one ever knew who killed them in the first place. I can't help but think I missed out on two great things, even if one of them was reviled by almost everyone else.
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This entry was written for
therealljidol. Vote for me if you liked it, and I will likely include you in my will. Full disclosure: This story is actually a mixing of two different ones, but both are true, and both involve my family. Feel free to ask if you want to know. Outline sections from my husband's notes on Decedent's Estates. He just took that exam, and I thought it relevant.