‘After death, things happen’

NEW YORK – It was soon after their mother’s death in 1996 that Lea Yardum and her sister got into a big fight and stopped speaking to each other.

Yardum and her sister both decided they wanted the cherry wood nightstand from their mother’s house, a piece that originally belonged to their grandmother.

“There were much bigger things we could have been arguing about,” said Yardum, 31, of Sherman Oaks, Calif. “But we were both caught up in the emotionalism after my mother died, and that caused things to happen that I would never have dreamed of.”

Many families have stories of fights that ensued after a loved one’s death, pitting brother against brother over the summer cottage or sister against sister over an antique ring.

Experts say families that communicate – before death, whether verbally or in writing – can avoid such family-wrenching spats.

“It really helps if the parents talk to the kids and ask questions like, ‘Do we have anything you really want?’ ” said attorney Denis Clifford, author of the book “Estate Planning Basics.” “Then they can write in their will or in a living trust, this thing goes to so-and-so.”

A will is the legal document used to pass property on to beneficiaries or to appoint a guardian for minor children. Living trusts are documents used to transfer property through a trust to beneficiaries outside of probate.

Clifford also said that if parents haven’t brought up inheritance issues, the children should.

“A lot of this is easier to sort out before someone passes away,” he said. “Get the communication going – parents to kids, kids to kids, kids back to the parents.”

For Yardum and her sister, 44-year-old Gena Wilder, the impasse over grandmother’s table ended several weeks later, after Wilder’s teenage son cleaned the table with a strong household disinfectant and destroyed the finish.

“Gena called me,” Yardum remembers. “She was laughing and told me what he had done. Soon we were both laughing, then crying.”

And talking again.

“The lesson learned for us was, indeed, family comes first – just like my mother always said,” said Yardum, who operates a public relations firm with her sister.

Les Kotzer, a Montreal lawyer who specializes in wills and estates, said many people believe disputes only happen in rich families. But he said he’s seen them in families at all income levels.

“People don’t just fight over money, they fight over memories,” he said. “People think, ‘I’m not a millionaire so why should I worry?’ Then their heirs end up fighting over a watch.”

Kotzer, who with law partner Barry Fish wrote “The Family Fight – Planning to Avoid It,” said even seemingly small things can create hard feelings.

He told the story of a woman who was upset when her brother inherited their mother’s ring and her sister-in-law had the stone put in a new setting.

“That ring was on my mother’s hand for 40 years, and now she’s gone and changed it,” Kotzer quoted her as saying. “She said, ‘I hate my brother and his wife. I won’t forgive them.’ “

Dividing up an estate also can rekindle long-simmering sibling rivalries, Kotzer said.

He recalled a woman who felt consistently shortchanged by her family and who brought a knapsack to his office, asking him to give it to her brothers. Inside were the shredded remains of the boys’ childhood toys, family photos and letters the boys had sent home from camp.

“Frankly, what they were fighting over wasn’t even major in the estate,” Kotzer said. “But a lot of anger came out.”

His book is aimed at giving families – both parents and children – tools to work things out amicably through good record keeping, gifts to children and charity, wills and power of attorney documents.

“I try to tell parents in the book, never assume goodwill among your children,” Kotzer said. “After death, things happen.”