Taxation & Estate Planning

Jonathan Franzen's Freedom and Probate Disputes

By Joel A. Schoenmeyer

I just finished Jonathan Franzen's novel Freedom. I was a big fan of his last "big" novel, The Corrections -- I didn't like this one as much, but it's still pretty good.

SPOILER ALERT: What's surprising is the fact that, near the end of the novel, the main character (Patty Berglund) gets embroiled in what is essentially a family probate dispute. Actually, that shouldn't be surprising; if you've read Franzen's work, you know that he likes to focus on family relationships, and on what we "inherit" from our parents. In any event, here's the issue:

Patty's father dies, owning a country estate he inherited from his father. Now Patty's mother, Joyce, has to figure out what to do with the estate:

"... Joyce was getting a daily drumbeat of pressure from her younger daughters [Patty's sisters Abigail and Veronica, who want the property sold], and Joyce was not well constituted to resist this pressure." (page 515)

Two things make Joyce's life more difficult:

1. Her two uncles "could make a strong moral claim to large shares of the sale price." (pages 515-516)

2. "...[T]he old stone house was currently occupied by Patty's brother, Edgar, his wife, Galina, and their soon-to-be-four little kids.... Edgar and Galina were threatening, if Joyce evicted them, to relocate to a West Bank settlement in Israel, taking with them the only grandchildren in Joyce's life...." (page 516)

So Patty visits her various siblings, all of whom are horrible (in different ways), in an attempt to break the logjam. It doesn't go particularly well.

What would I advise if I represented Joyce? Well, the first thing is figuring out what SHE wants. And of course, that's tough. I see it in a lot of families (including my own) -- mom doesn't want to give money (or the right to stay in a house) to her son or daughter or grandson or granddaughter, but they make her feel guilty, so she does it. Then mom complains to other relatives, and sibling rivalries arise. Was the gift (allowing Edgar and his family to stay at the estate) of her own volition or not?

I'd also try to set out a complete list of options:

-sell property, keep money for yourself (but then Edgar and his family may move away)
-sell property, distribute to relatives (do your husband's brothers deserve a share? what about your kids? did Edgar in some sense already receive part or all of his share?)
-keep property until you die (but then how do you want it distributed?)

The key is that there's a default for what will happen if you do nothing. If you die without having sold the estate, then it passes according to your Will and/or Trust (or if you don't have these documents, to your heirs -- in Illinois, that would be equally to the four kids).

Full post as published by Death and Taxes Blog on September 30, 2010 (boomark / email).