This week, my family found a missing relative. They're not happy about it.
My cousin's wife told us that a brother of her husband has died, apparently of a brain tumor. When his adored wife abruptly died, several years ago, he dropped out of sight, moving to a new city and state. Somehow, they found his address, and would send him Christmas cards and notes, but he never responded. This was the first they'd heard of him in years.
The path of discovery was circuitous, to put it mildly. When he died, the hospital had no information about a next of kin. They spoke with people at the supermarket where he'd been employed, and it turned out that his only documented next of kin was his wife. A person there said that he'd mentioned once having a brother who worked for the same chain in New York. The hospital worker called the chain offices in New York, which put her in touch with the union handling their employees; the union went down their list of everyone with that fairly common last name until they came across my cousin. And that was it.
They're trying now to figure out what to do. It doesn't help that the family is four hours from where he lived. We're two hours away, so we offered to help as needed. To complicate matters, the property manager for the apartment where he lived is being most unhelpful, and won't let them into his apartment to empty it -- said they had to have a 'power of attorney' to do that. The family contacted a lawyer there, who said that was crazy, a POA wasn't needed, and the manager was an idiot. The family's afraid he is simply going to throw out or sell all of my cousin's stuff, and while there's not likely to be anything that anyone will want of a material nature, there could well be things of an emotional nature, such as photographs and mementos.
What a mess. This is the same branch of the family which lost a sister a year ago, my mother (their aunt) two months ago, and damn near a niece last week. They're beginning to feel a little battered.
2 comments:
Ahhh, now here is where a lawyer's letter is needed. That letter should state the names of the relatives, and their claims, plus a copy of the death certificate and any other relevant paperwork. . The landlord is clever to demand a p of a because he has probably had relatives show up in the past claiming ownership, who were not relatives at all. After all, he doesn't know YOU from Santa Claus!
The landlord can have the stuff moved into storage, assess the cost of the storage locker to you (make sure you offer that in the letter), and then you can deal with it there...for instance, you can have it auctioned off to the highest bidder. This is quite legal and proper providing all possible claimnants have been notified well in advance. The disposal of the resultant cash becomes the brother's "estate", and will probably amount almost nothing after all the storage fees and moving costs are figured in. You will then have to get Power of Attorney to dispose of the estate. In Canada you would have to have a P of A to run the auction...other jurisdictions may differ.
Here you might want to take legal advice...different states have different rules. He has apparently died intestate, but who knows, there may be a will floating around somewhere. Find out where he banked, talk to the bank manager who WILL demand that you have P of A before releasing the contents of a safety deposit box which "might" contain a will.
Regardless, this is a mess, and you MUST get the ephemera, the paperwork and photographs, all the stuff the auctioneer intentionally gets rid of...paper trails can be messy to an auctioneer, but are gold to a relative.
Good luck Bill, its a can of worms that you really did not need to get involved with at this time of your life. But try to stay positive. There are probably good reasons why the landlord and bankers act the way they do. A lawyer's letter provides a good crowbar to lever the doors open.
Well, we're taking the 'warm body' approach. They can handle the arrangements, but if they need a warm body to show up and physically do something -- we'll do that.
At least, that's the plan.
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