Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
MONEY MANNERS
JEANNE FLEMING AND LEONARD SCHWARZ DEAR JEANNE &
LEONARD: When I first met the woman who is now my wife, we both owned houses. So when we decided to get married, we agreed that we’d sell our houses and pool the money to buy one together. But after I sold my place, she took hers off the market, saying she’d “come to an agreement” to keep it in her family. Now both of our names are on the title to our new home (even though only I put up the money for it), while her name alone is on the title of her prior home. Would I be out of line to ask that she put me on the title to her house? If something happens to me, she gets everything the two of us own. If something happens to her, I don’t.
— Jim DEAR JIM: Out of line to ask? On the contrary, you’d be crazy not to.
What your wife has done — renege on her commitment to put the equity in her prior home into the purchase of your current house — is no small “oops” between a husband and wife. It’s a major
breach of faith. Her broken promise is something she needs to remedy, and the best way to do so would be, as you say, to add your name to the title of her prior home.
We hope she agrees when you ask her to do so. Unfortunately, though, it sounds as if she and her family have other plans for her house, plans that don’t include you. DEAR JEANNE & LEONARD: You once published a column explaining how to divide a parent’s estate equally between siblings when some of the siblings have outstanding balances on loans given to them by the parent. Could you please go through the process one more time? Thanks. I realize I should have saved your column.
— R.R. DEAR R. R.: Now you know: Stop lining the birdcage with “Money Manners.”
Kidding aside, to achieve an even distribution: Take the total value of the outstanding loans and add it to the value of everything else in the estate. This gives you the total value of the estate. Divide this number by the number of siblings, which gives you each sibling’s share of the estate. Then, in the case of siblings who owe the deceased parent money, subtract the amount each owes from his or her share of the estate. This tells you how much money they are to receive.
For example: Imagine that a parent with four children has $380,000 when she dies, and one child owes her $15,000 while another owes her $5,000. That makes the total value of her estate $400,000. This, in turn, means that each sibling’s one-quarter share is $100,000. The sibling with the $15,000 unpaid loan would then get $85,000; the sibling with the $ 5,000 unpaid loan would get $ 95,000; and the other two siblings would each get $100,000. Add up the distributions, and you’ll see that they equal the $380,000 the parent had at her death. Plus, you’ll see that each child got a full $100,000 share; it’s just that, for the two debtors, a portion of their $100,000 was used to repay their outstanding loans.