Am I legally obligated to use my deceased relative's assets in this way?
July 12, 2018 2:35 PM Subscribe
After ignoring our requests to collect my brother's things for three weeks his roommate/landlord has finally invited us to come over. The county examiner emailed at the same time asking that I go to the bank with Aisha and grant my permission to open my brother's bank account and see who the beneficiaries are so that, if I am one, I may pay these funds to the funeral home Aisha and the examiner are working with.
No one questions that I am my brother's next of kin yet both Aisha and the county examiner assume Aisha will make all the decisions because she claims she will pay for a funeral and the examiner seems desperately to want this. Our family has always preferred casual wakes to funeral home affairs but the examiner seems to be a walking advertisement for funeral homes. I understand that she must appeal to funeral homes when there are no funds for burial so perhaps she has become an advertisement for them?
Sorry for so many details. We really need to be educatd here. If my brother left a will it's possible we will never know. Should I give my permission to the bank as they wish, hire a probate attorney and reschedule our meeting? My brother passed away in the city of Battle Creek, MI then he was taken to Kalamazoo, with a county jurisdiction. The last thing that matters to us is Aisha's implication in my brother's passing. There are many troubling circumstances such as her departure with the kids over the 24-hr window in which my brother passed away after a fall while drinking, replacing—one month before my brother died—her facebook page featuring her partying lifestyle with one in a different name and including nothing but found quotes about motherhood, and more. We don't plan to press anything and are concerned most of all for her four small children.
No one questions that I am my brother's next of kin yet both Aisha and the county examiner assume Aisha will make all the decisions because she claims she will pay for a funeral and the examiner seems desperately to want this. Our family has always preferred casual wakes to funeral home affairs but the examiner seems to be a walking advertisement for funeral homes. I understand that she must appeal to funeral homes when there are no funds for burial so perhaps she has become an advertisement for them?
Sorry for so many details. We really need to be educatd here. If my brother left a will it's possible we will never know. Should I give my permission to the bank as they wish, hire a probate attorney and reschedule our meeting? My brother passed away in the city of Battle Creek, MI then he was taken to Kalamazoo, with a county jurisdiction. The last thing that matters to us is Aisha's implication in my brother's passing. There are many troubling circumstances such as her departure with the kids over the 24-hr window in which my brother passed away after a fall while drinking, replacing—one month before my brother died—her facebook page featuring her partying lifestyle with one in a different name and including nothing but found quotes about motherhood, and more. We don't plan to press anything and are concerned most of all for her four small children.
Response by poster: Oh bless you, Jessamyn! I can't tell you how much you've helped.
posted by R2WeTwo at 2:44 PM on July 12, 2018
posted by R2WeTwo at 2:44 PM on July 12, 2018
hire a probate attorney
Possibly your question has been answered by Jessamyn, but it appears you have many questions.
Generally the first step is to get yourself, as the sister, formally appointed administrator, or executor, or whatever it's called in your jurisdiction. From your post it sounds like a step has been skipped. That's all I can get from your post. A local estate attorney can straighten this out as a routine matter.
posted by JimN2TAW at 3:34 PM on July 12, 2018 [2 favorites]
Possibly your question has been answered by Jessamyn, but it appears you have many questions.
Generally the first step is to get yourself, as the sister, formally appointed administrator, or executor, or whatever it's called in your jurisdiction. From your post it sounds like a step has been skipped. That's all I can get from your post. A local estate attorney can straighten this out as a routine matter.
posted by JimN2TAW at 3:34 PM on July 12, 2018 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Our family was in a similar situation re: dead relative and county medical examiner.
What you need to know and remember: the medical examiner has no legal power to compel you to do anything. The reason they do this is because if the family doesn't take responsibility for the remains, the county will be stuck with doing it and paying the bill themselves. And they really, really don't want to be stuck with the expense.
So - you can cut the M.E. out of the conversation about money etc right away, if you wish. If you feel like it, you can refuse to pay out of your pocket for your brother's interment, and if you have the legal claim on his remaining assets, you can refuse to pay with those. Also: his girlfriend doesn't have the legal right to arrange for his funeral and/or interment unless he left her specific instructions and permission to do so. Otherwise, it's next of kin, and if she never married him, she's not it. The ME has to work with the family, not a non-relative. Heck, if you felt mean enough, you could both refuse to pay and refuse to let the girlfriend do a funeral or interment, because she has no legal claim.
In our case, the ME pushed and pushed us to take responsibility for our dead cousin, but we gave the ME the names and addresses of two of his sisters. Neither one wanted to take responsibility - in fact, one kept hanging up on his calls, and he had to send the police in her city to her house just to get her to open her door, then tell her the call was genuine, and the ME just needed a decision as to what to do with her brother's remains. Since both sisters kept stalling, the ME came back to us again and again - and we kept telling him, we weren't going to assume the legal liability of making decisions that were not ours to make. We weren't going to risk taking care of it, only to be sued by his sisters.
This also happened, btw, to yet another relative, and in that case her son took responsibility, made arrangements, had his mom cremated - then never paid and never picked up the cremains. We only found that out decades later after he'd died (yeah, the relative in the above narrative), and by then it was too late - the funeral home that had performed the cremation and held onto the remains was long out of business and no one knew what happened to our aunt's cremains.
posted by Lunaloon at 4:02 PM on July 12, 2018 [8 favorites]
What you need to know and remember: the medical examiner has no legal power to compel you to do anything. The reason they do this is because if the family doesn't take responsibility for the remains, the county will be stuck with doing it and paying the bill themselves. And they really, really don't want to be stuck with the expense.
So - you can cut the M.E. out of the conversation about money etc right away, if you wish. If you feel like it, you can refuse to pay out of your pocket for your brother's interment, and if you have the legal claim on his remaining assets, you can refuse to pay with those. Also: his girlfriend doesn't have the legal right to arrange for his funeral and/or interment unless he left her specific instructions and permission to do so. Otherwise, it's next of kin, and if she never married him, she's not it. The ME has to work with the family, not a non-relative. Heck, if you felt mean enough, you could both refuse to pay and refuse to let the girlfriend do a funeral or interment, because she has no legal claim.
In our case, the ME pushed and pushed us to take responsibility for our dead cousin, but we gave the ME the names and addresses of two of his sisters. Neither one wanted to take responsibility - in fact, one kept hanging up on his calls, and he had to send the police in her city to her house just to get her to open her door, then tell her the call was genuine, and the ME just needed a decision as to what to do with her brother's remains. Since both sisters kept stalling, the ME came back to us again and again - and we kept telling him, we weren't going to assume the legal liability of making decisions that were not ours to make. We weren't going to risk taking care of it, only to be sued by his sisters.
This also happened, btw, to yet another relative, and in that case her son took responsibility, made arrangements, had his mom cremated - then never paid and never picked up the cremains. We only found that out decades later after he'd died (yeah, the relative in the above narrative), and by then it was too late - the funeral home that had performed the cremation and held onto the remains was long out of business and no one knew what happened to our aunt's cremains.
posted by Lunaloon at 4:02 PM on July 12, 2018 [8 favorites]
Response by poster: Lunaloon you are a wonder. I haven't art to say how much you've helped. Thank you!
posted by R2WeTwo at 5:16 PM on July 12, 2018
posted by R2WeTwo at 5:16 PM on July 12, 2018
Response by poster: I promised an update. We've met with Aisha and everything concerning my brother is settled. One child was absent and she didn't want to talk about it but all three of the others seem remarkably well, smiling and happy especially given their desperately poor situation. I worked for some years as an advocate for children of migrant communities and at the time their conditions were considered the worst in the US. Cinder block homes with dirt floors and only cold running water. Yet they had screens on their windows, furniture—however simple—in good repair, and a fridge filled with their harvest rather than with beer only.
Aisha returned our photos, thankfully, but had nothing else of my brother's...not an empty wallet, a book, or even a toothbrush. Another man has already moved in. When we asked how much she needs for the funeral home she didn't know. Neither could she tell us the name of the funeral home. I've told the examiner that if Aisha's intention is sincere it seems that even she didn't see its fulfillment.
The timely help of a most intuitive loonaloon and a superhuman librarian made all the difference in allowing me to relax and lean-in to this meeting. Yay MeFi!
posted by R2WeTwo at 2:56 PM on July 13, 2018 [6 favorites]
Aisha returned our photos, thankfully, but had nothing else of my brother's...not an empty wallet, a book, or even a toothbrush. Another man has already moved in. When we asked how much she needs for the funeral home she didn't know. Neither could she tell us the name of the funeral home. I've told the examiner that if Aisha's intention is sincere it seems that even she didn't see its fulfillment.
The timely help of a most intuitive loonaloon and a superhuman librarian made all the difference in allowing me to relax and lean-in to this meeting. Yay MeFi!
posted by R2WeTwo at 2:56 PM on July 13, 2018 [6 favorites]
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If it were me--and I have had to deal with some of this with parental deaths and I am sorry I know it's frustrating at a time when you don't really want to--I would have a brief talk with the examiner and, if necessary, the funeral home telling them you are the one making the decisions. You do not have to have a funeral at the funeral home if you do not want to and you certainly do not have to pay for a funeral that you don't want. If you'd like some feedback from a disinterested third party about your responsibilities you might want to call MeFi's ColdChef (if you DM me I can give you his number) who has always offered to help MeFites deal with tricky issues concerning death and funerals.
posted by jessamyn at 2:41 PM on July 12, 2018 [23 favorites]