Avalon, TX Estate Planning Law Firms & Lawyers

Your mother's estate is responsible for paying her debts. If there are insufficient assets in her estate to pay all of her debts, unless the debt is joint such as a co-signed loan, you have no personal obligation to pay for your mother's debts. Some creditors and collection agencies will imply that you as a relative have a legal obligation to pay; however, this is a collection tactic and is simply untrue. Where the estate is insolvent, Wisconsin Statutes section 859.25 specifies the priority in which debts and expenses are to be applied: 1. Costs and expenses of administering the estate. 2. Reasonable funeral and burial expenses. 3. Provisions for the family under certain limited circumstances. 4. Reasonable and necessary expenses of the last sickness, including compensation of persons attending your mother. 5. All debts and taxes owed to the government. 6. Wages due to employees earned within 3 months before the date of death. 7. Property assigned to a surviving spouse. 8. All other claims. You should explain to your mother's creditors that there are no assets in her estate available to pay and supply any documentation requested by the State of Wisconsin with regard to her nursing home care expenses.

Basically a question of South Carolina law. However, basic common law would say, does brother have a reason why this should happen? Power of attorney only allows you to do those things that the principal would do if he were able not what you want, or think is right, but what the principal wants.

Trusts are WAY better than Wills. One of the reasons is that trusts allow you to avoid probate. The ultimate distribution might be identical, but going through probate would cost several thousand dollars, to get to that point. Trusts have other benefits, as well, including the fact that it is a private arrangement. There is no court involvement and the documents (and administration and distributions) are not part of the public record. The ONLY drawbacks to a trust are: 1) It costs more; 2) It is more complex; 3) You need to properly "fund" the trust, or it will not provide you with the maximum benefit. You should have the trust set up by an estate planning attorney. You should expect that the cost will be somewhere between $1,000-2,000. In spite of the cost, this is the only way to ensure that your objectives will be met. It also minimizes the risks of any future problems. I am working with a family right now who bought an online trust. It was not set up properly so now, probate is necessary and because of the documents that were used, a more expensive form of probate is required. The family saved $1,000 on setting up the trust, but it will now cost them more than $5,000 to probate the estate.