My Day In Court

Well, I'm back from CA, and I can't say it was a good visit. We got there Monday afternoon and spent a few hours with the attorney. He went over how we were supposed to answer questions, and stressed saying "Yes" or "No" instead of noncommittal answers. So we were good with that. Unfortunately my brother wasn't doing too well and has a kidney stone that hadn't passed yet. He took some drugs Monday night, but he couldn't take any Tuesday for the big day in court.

So Tuesday comes, and we're feeling pretty confident that things will finally start turning around for us. Nope. Nada. Zilch. No luck there. The judge decided to remove my brother as trustee and put in my uncle Jim. The same uncle whom my grandmother removed from the trust back in 2000. Because she didn't want him to manage her estate. Because she didn't trust him. But the judge decided he was the better choice for trustee. WHAT IN THE WORLD??? So apparently my grandmothers wishes don't matter. And it doesn't matter what is in the legal document - the judge can jus overturn it.

So we had to negotiate a settlement to have my brother resign. And he ended up losing about $20k in all of this. Excuse me - where is the justice here? Why was the good guy finishing last? And why do these greedy people still get what they wanted. So now my sister and I have to monitor my uncle to make sure he upholds the trust. There is enough cash in the estate to pay my brother's settlement. But there isn't enough to pay the 6 beneficiaries. So they will have to sell the contents of the house. But they will want to use that money to pay off their legal fees and get the house ready to sell. But they can't do that. They have to pay the 6 beneficiaries first. So now we'll have to keep an eye on this, and get the attorney's involved if my uncle does anything that violates the trust.

The sad part is that my brother had everything lined up to go. He had a buyer for the contents of the house. He had a person to fix the pool, someone to fix the gas leak, someone to paint the house. He could have had the house on the market within 2 months. But no, they had to go and tie this up in court for 2 years. UGH!

So we decided to blow off the other family (godparents, etc) and not drive up to LA to see them for dinner. Instead, we decided we needed to forget about everything and attempt to have some fun. So what did we do?? We spent 4 hours in Disneyland!! The only good part of the trip. And there were almost no lines, so we got to go on quite a few rides, and then spent more time shopping! Just what I need before my trip next week!