My cousin in Florida and his wife both passed away a few months ago. They died without wills and it fell to me to deal with their estate because no one else wanted to. I hope everyone who sees this has a will. It will save your family a lot of hassle.
I had a piece of 3/4" mahogany, but not enough to build both urns. I had to resaw it, then glue it to an MDF substrate. Joints are all mitered and glued so there are no fasteners. Finish is Formby's tung oil.
The table is one I designed (I'm not a furniture maker) and am trying to finish before Monday so I can take it to my sister since she'll be at the funeral. She gave me the dimensions she wanted and left the rest to me. I've still got to sand, stain, and finish it.
>I hope everyone who sees this has a will. It will save your family a lot of hassle.
Not to hijack the thread, but I would suggest everyone look into putting things into a trust as opposed to just a Will, especially something called an Irrevocable or "Dacey" Trust. It shields against frivolousness lawsuits and completely avoids probate, as legally you own nothing. The trust owns everything to put into it, which you control as long as you are alive but automatically pass to those you specify the moment of your death. The only downside would be that irrevocable means exactly that; there is no changing it once made.
A related story, when my father died, he was cremated. I was the last to leave the church, and I noticed his ashes still there near the altar. Hmmm...I picked them up to take them with me to the farmhouse where I was raised (now empty) and where I was going to spend a few nights.
On the way to my car with "Dad," a car came wheeling into the church parking lot. It was the mortician, highly embarrassed at having left the ashes which he was supposed to take with him where the family would later decided upon their disposition.
Apologizing profusely, I told him no worries and it was OK. Just draw up a contract offering me a free cremation and I would promise to never tell anyone.
I try to make lemonade whenever being dealt lemons, or ashes--although I'm not sure I'd want to drink that.
Did I just break my promise by posting this here? Don't tell anyone!
Second, "Irrevocable" applies to the Trust once the original grantor dies. The grantor can change it while they are alive, even dissolve it. And if stocks, bonds, or real estate are part of the trust, you'll still need a paid attorney or CPA to sort through the legal stuff and direct you properly. It took me over a year to resolve my folks' trust and get the beneficiaries their funds. And, never appoint more than one person to act as trustee; it's hard enough to deal with this stuff without having to have agreement on every decision. Luckily, we had a CPA in the family and my co-trustee and I agreed on most everything. Still, not fun being a trustee or executor.
Thanks for the clarification. I was my understanding from the attorney who set up my father's trust that it could not be changed once set up. But that was many, many years ago, and things may have changed, or perhaps the attorney over-stressed the irrevocable part to make sure we wanted to do it.
Not all attorneys are the same. When my father-in-law passed away, about 20 years ago, his attorney, for many years, was initially picked to settle the estate. He told us it would cost around 32K. That seemed very high. We selected another attorney from the yellow pages. His fee was around 3K.
