Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

My father passed away about a year and a half ago. My mother is still living and they were married to each other until death do they part. They had 3 daughters, very close in age, of which I am the youngest. My father always said that when he passed away there wouldn't be much but everything would be divided equally between his 3 daughters. What we had to divide would be my parents house located at Mission Beach. A few years before my Dad passed my oldest sister moved both of my parents out of their house and up to Campo with her. She convinced my Mom to put it on the market, at a crazy time , because it was not a good time to sell a house,.knowing all along that this is against my father's wishes. In the meantime she had my father misdiagnosed with having Alzheimer's and eventually again convinced my Mom that a nursing home was the best place for him. I totally disagreed but there was no changing of minds. Now, if my Dad had passed away in a few weeks after being admitted I would have agreed. But, he didn't, and lived,excuse me, barely existed there for about 2 years. Anyways, my Dad had written his will dividing the house equally amongst his daughters and for some reason my oldest sister rewrote the will and trust, having my Dad sign it on his death bed. Well, then she got busy selling the house to my neice and her husband who at this point in time had been renting it from my Mom, which in turn paid the monthly mortgage on the house, approximately 2400.00. The neice buying the house is the daughter of the middle sister.The oldest sister tells my Mom to sign over the house to middle sister, who now becomes the seller of the house to her daughter. (Something to do with a skip generation).. Now, when I asked my oldest sister, the orchastrator of all this, "What did the house sell for ?" Her reply she didn't quite know, but, she continued, Mom and Dad owed way more on it than the 450,000. because Dad gambled it away. Not only is she being very untruthful here but she's lying about our Dad, who was the best father in the world to all of us. On the middle daughters federal\gift tax returns of 2014, the house was sold for 815,000 (lower than fair market value, I believe), the first mortgage owed was 460,000, and the equity amount off 268,750.00. was split 50\50 gifted to my neice and her husband who bought the house. And, on paper its stated 134,375 to each were gifted equity for tax purposes. Wow what's going on ???


Asked on 4/30/15, 1:02 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Len Tillem Tillem McNichol & Brown

I'm going to make the assumption that your parents' trust or will left everything to one another and then to the three children on the second death, as that's the way 99.8% of people do it. If this is the case, then your sister has apparently manipulated the situation to her benefit (or her niece's benefit). So, you may want to talk to an attorney about elder financial abuse.

The property transfer to the daughter, and then to the granddaughter, was done for the purpose of avoiding a Property Tax reassessment of the property. It's not uncommon to do this.

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Answered on 4/30/15, 9:26 am


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