My ex-brother-in-law died in May, 2014. His grandfather was the head driller on the infamous East Texas Oilfield in the 1930’s – at the time, the largest oil discovery onshore in the continential U.S. At At 25 (and then again at 30, when his younger brother turned 25), my brother in law became an instant millionaire. (His parents died young). He never held a single job in his life – he had all this money land in his lap. As such, he became a victim of “arrested development” – he never matured enough to be able to handle the money.
In the mid 1980’s, after fathering his only child (my nephew), he and my sister divorced and he sold a lot of his mineral rights. He remarried in 1990 and gave his new wife a lot more of his mineral rights.
He was always heavy and died at 64 1/2 (just shy of medicaire) with no medical insurance. He spent about 6 weeks in intensive care. He racked up close to $1,000,000 in medical bills.
He also died without a will.
Soon after he died, a landman contacted my nephew and told him he had an oil and gas lease for him to sign. I told my nephew I would hire an attorney for him, because at his age (early 30’s) he didn’t need to be spending his hard-earned money on legal bills.
I have never met the widow. I have no idea what her deal is. But she didn’t tell any of the operators who write these royalty checks that her husband passed away. She just kept cashing the checks (which means she also didn’t inform the bank). She had tried to get my nephew to sign some document that would have allowed her to sell the house (without probate) which is really odd. The house was titled in the name of a deceased person. It must go through probate. Then she walked – she moved in with her daughter in another city so I have no idea if that house is now in horrible disrepair which will affect its value.
She’s cognizant enough to file new leases (which I can find online) and change her address with the county tax offices, but not cognizant enough to produce good infomation for this administration proceeding. That leads me to believe she’s not being honest, rather than just naive or crazy. (I have never really been sure).
But I have now spent close to $20,000 in legal fees, and untold amounts doing research online and in person, driving hundreds of miles to do courthouse research (luckily I really enjoy it). I glean information from online tax appraisal districts, unclaimed money websites, leases filed online, and from the bank and tax records the widow has produced. The companies are all very understanding – they go through this way too often.
What would have avoided this? It would have been nice if my brother-in-law had gotten ObamaCare when he was healthy (he had his heart attack in between sign-up periods) and he could have consulted an attorney who would have told him that without a will in Texas, 2/3 of his inherited property passed to his son (I honestly think his wife simply assumed it was all hers until she was told by a title company about the issue with the house).
I think my brother -in-law was too lazy and immature to get his shit together. It’s a lot to get together. People simply would rather their heirs go through the headache of figuring it out. That’s not the best way to leave your legacy.
disgruntledheir 