Pandemic forced many unprepared young adults to deal with parents’ estates

 There was no last will.

My husband and I knew that our work would be cut out for us. The death of my father-in-law in November 2020 was the sudden end of a long-term illness that he and his children were not ready for. He did not have Covid-19, but hospital pandemic-related restrictions excluded direct visits, making it difficult to understand his condition and manage care.

The day after we learned that his health was rapidly deteriorating, we bought a ticket for a flight to Florida. We thought he would land just before he was transferred to hospice care. There, my husband, Ryan, was able to visit his father. But he couldn’t get through that night.

The next day, I boarded as scheduled. What was supposed to be the last reunion became the mission of reconstruction. Ryan tried to sleep while making a list of what we needed to find, based on Google search results and AARP articles. The final will is the inventory of bank accounts, credit cards and retirement accounts. By the time we landed in the seaside town, road maps were scribbled on scrap paper.

But I didn’t know how much I was left behind. Not only was there no last will, but there was no inventory of assets. We didn’t even know where his wallet was. We had to start from scratch.

Ryan and I stayed for three weeks, stitching together what we could do from a confused file folder and an old invoice. His brother helped us from afar, and his mom jumped across the finish line to help us. His father’s death pushed Ryan, then 31 years old, into an unfamiliar world of unlisted assets and prosecution lawyers through a door that was expected to remain closed for much longer.

Another year, Ryan might have come to say goodbye. He and his father may have done a SAT together and discussed everything that followed. It may not have been closed, but at least it would have been clear.

But it wasn’t a normal year.

Many young adults face unexpected problems at this point in our lives after parents, grandparents, and other relatives have died in connection with Covid for several months. ..

Millions affected

The numbers have reached such an astonishing height and are almost impossible to conceptualize. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 570,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus and more than 32 million cases of US Covid-19.

Sadness is widespread. University of Southern California last summer analysis On average, each Covid-19 death was found to correspond to approximately nine individuals who lost their grandparents, parents, siblings, spouse, or children. At that time, an estimated 137,871 lives were lost, representing more than one million surviving Americans. Using today’s death toll, that number reaches over 5 million.

The authors of the study noted that young individuals are at increased risk of losing their parents and grandparents, who are classified in the age group with the highest documented case fatality rates.

Caitlin Moen is one of them.

The 25-year-old was working on a treatise at a graduate school in Mankato, Minnesota when her father died of Covid-19 last spring. Her father, then 64 years old,  was recently diagnosed with cancer.

For the past year, Moen has picked up his work. He has organized his home documents to find important documents, demanded a mortgage withholding, and is now selling his childhood home while trying to handle the loss.

“When everything started, I was 24. My dad intended to live until he was 80, but by then I thought I would be in my 40s,” she says. “I have a job after graduating from school and can take the time to handle everything.”

Barbara Schelhorn, Principal and Senior Client Advisor at SBSB Financial Advisors, states that betraying these expectations is one of the most difficult parts of making a family sad during a pandemic. “They aren’t given such extravagant time,” says Shellhorn, referring to both the younger generation and their lost loved ones. “We need to do a lot to make simple things easy. [family members] After passing, but without time and preparation in advance, it can be very overwhelming for survivors. “

Tough lessons

Moen’s dad, like my father-in-law, did not leave a will.

“He was one of them, like,’I’m going to live forever. Don’t worry now,’” says Moen. A few days after his death, she had to reverse engineer his understanding of assets and liabilities, access his PO Box, and organize everything in his home with his longtime friends. Moen says his friend “Marie Kondo edited everything”, organizing the documents by account and thinking about what to shred.

At the same time, Moen was called by the Inspector General to dispose of his father’s remains. There was no document showing what he wanted. She chose cremation. The service cost about $ 2,500 and couldn’t be obtained by Moen alone. She borrowed money from a close relative.

Moen worked with a prosecution lawyer to acquire his father’s assets, credit card debt, and shares in revolving invoices. It took several months to pass the Probate Court, which deals with the management of the deceased’s property. She completed the process last September and finally gained access to her father’s bank account.

“Overall, it was about $ 8,000,” she says — much more than she expected. She created a real estate bank account to cover the cost of improving the home while working to sell his home.

After his death until February 2021, Moen was able to withhold his father’s monthly mortgage payments and found a potential buyer, the daughter of his neighbor. However, she ran into problems due to her naivety.

Without the help of a realtor, she wouldn’t reveal in the purchase contract that the house was being sold as-is, Moen said. Therefore, to complete the sale, she spent $ 3,000 to replace the furnace, $ 1,600 to the radon mitigation system, about $ 1,000 to install the side grooves, and $ 600 to remove mold, but still patching the wall. there is.

She feels a twisted irony towards the impossible dreams of many in their mid-twenties for a limited time as a homeowner. “It’s my childhood home … and it’s a lot of hard work and I can’t keep it up,” she says. “Own a house is one of my fiancés and I really want what we can do, and now I got it in the worst of circumstances. “

After she finishes selling her home, disposes of the remaining debt and pays a lawyer, Moen thinks she may have about $ 10,000 left. But she doesn’t want to have hope.

“I have private student loans that pay $ 200 a month from undergraduates, so paying back those loans is my first thing,” she says.

The process didn’t expect her to deal with her for decades because she thought she and her father had enough time to sort out what would happen after he left. I gave her a short-term intensive course in terms of personal finances. When taking care of the real estate, Moen says he didn’t have time to mourn.

“Now I feel better equipped,” she says. “But it’s a shame I was forced to learn this way.”

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