Well today was the first business day of the week and for some reason the stupid pill that people take on Mondays seemed to have been taken by not only the staff at B of A in my home town but also at our local county court house by all kinds of offices there.
A little back ground: I am now the oldest of two children who are surviving the death of both parents in less than 18 months. My father never really completed all that needed to be done for Mom's estate and now I get to clean up the mess from both. My sister is very much trying to help out but she lives 200+ miles away and I am currently in the "tag your it" mode....
So, about six weeks ago I received a letter from B of A stating that the safe deposit box rent was due. It was addressed to my dead mother and my dad was in the hospital having just had surgery for five by-passes, a mitral valve replacement and repair of a hole in between the upper chambers of his heart. The letter was a last reminder that if the rent was not paid by certain date the box and it's contents would revert back to the bank ...blah blah blah... OK! can't let that happen. I went to the bank with my husband and mom's death
certificate to see if I could just remove the contents. NO! Only my father could do that, I explained that my father had recently had surgery and that I am acting on his behalf... NO... sorry if your father were deceased you could just bring us the death certificate and then there is a form that your sister would have to fill releasing her interest in the box....but until he is gone... only he can open that box...
OK so what about the rent on the box? how can I ensure that dad has enough time to deal with this when he gets out of the hospital? I was told that they would be happy to let me pay the rent on the box, but that I could not open it... oh...OK, so you will take my money but you wont let me peek to make sure something is in it? fine ... I paid the money.
Now flash forward to today... "he is dead... yes... dead...yes I have a death certificate, here's the will that states all bank accounts... what? what the hell is a"Letter of Testamentary"? but I have a will right here...ok, so what you are saying is that i need some kind of a "letter" saying that the will is interpreted to say that I can open the box that I paid the rent on? Let me explain what I was told last time...ooh you remember last time... good so why can't I open the stupid box? No letter... right what was I thinking? Ok, well can we move on to his credit cards please... what? you want me to call an 800 number...uh huh...and say what? and I will need to fax them a copy of his death certificate...ok can you help me with this so we can get it all done now? why not? oh... you are just following the policy...hmmmm...."
Ok we will skip the rest of the conversation... and just leave it at I lost my temper (which is always ugly) and had a hissy fit... again not pretty... and stormed out of the bank in a flood of profanity including calling the staff a bunch of "fucktards"...nice so lady like... I am so embarrassed.. and was so angry at the time that it didn't matter what I was thinking...at this point since the fucktard of an employee could not offer me a chair at a desk and sit down and take the time to explain to me what I needed in a manner that was professional and compassionate I am completely and totally beyond angry.
So the letter of testamentary that i need must be something that is from the courts ... I seem to sort of remember that the fucktard said that I needed to get it from there... OK next stop county court house...
Did you know that to work at the information desk at the county court house here you only have to know where things are not what people in each office do? I wish I had known that when the job came up I would have applied...probably pays better than what I made working for the county mental health contractor.....lol
At the information desk I am told that to get the letter of testamentary I need to go to the county records office...down the hall to the end on the right... OK... off I go.
The county records people say... "we don't do letters of testamentary, we file the resulting property changes after the court issues them, you need this form (flashes form) you can get it at the bookstore down town...when I ask what bookstore she says oh you know the one down town...(I live in a small town that happens to be the county seat there are two book stores down town and two office supply stores also down town) ...you need to go upstairs to the county court clerks office...upstairs and straight ahead room 230.
county court clerks office says... you need to go to the office supply store on main street...(where they both are located) and get a "small estates" form...here let me write that down for you... it is not more than $200k in real property is it? bank accounts don't count but retirement plans do...yes so do vehicles, homes, etc...any property. Oh well I cant give you legal advice but I would see a lawyer... you should probably talk too a lawyer...no you don't need a lawyer if it is below 200k, if there is a house you can check with the county tax assessor's office to see what the house is worth... that is down stairs to the right.
down stairs to the right is a hallway... there are several doors... one is marked county tax department... one is marked county assessor department. well, she said "county tax assessor" lets try the county tax ppl first...
the lady at the county tax office was very very kind and sweet. she told me I was in the wrong place and that I could have a print out of what she knew about the yearly taxes for the property so I would be ready to pay them when it came time. She directed me to the office across the hall the county assessor's office.
the county assessor's office was able to tell me what the county says the property is worth. She also recommended that if I had any other real property that was included in the estate that I thought may go over 200K to contact a lawyer....
OK! I GET IT...
Off to see dad's lawyer...Kari..who is very nice and looks like she is like, I don't know...12?
Kari says that she will look into it all and get back with me soon...taking care of the PERS (our state's version of state employees retirement) thing for mom's stuff and the whole estate thing... and my sister will have to sign something for Kari saying that I can do the legal stuff...
and finally off to the credit union... where I already know the answer but have to show them the death certificate anyway...I have to say that the credit union was much nicer to us than those fucktards at B of A and I even got to sit down and have my questions answered. My gosh! I was treated like an actual person... no really for reals!
I have since calmed down quite a bit and have decided that our account at B of A is going to be closed... I have an account at another bank that I have been using for some time now and am hoping that I can just have my husbands direct deposit switched over... then we will close the B of A account and they can...as my father used to say " go fuck yourself"
over all this has been an eventful day... we are hoping to have enough money to deal with the parts of this that we need to do quickly and then we want to have the lawyer handle the rest of the story and hopefully we will be done soon...In the meantime I am so tired of the crap that it is amazing...and now we have to deal with the rest of it tomorrow because I can't call the credit cards right now, the companies are closed... oh my gosh... we may actually get this all cleared up tomorrow...YEAH RIGHT!!!
Who knows?
