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Thanks for the link. What a relief!
Np. What struck me though is that most average/poor families will end up having some if not all of their property absorbed back into the system if they are not frugal. This is a problem, and though it is good that the children do not carry the debts of the parents, this is fubar, and I will tell you why.
My grandmother died when I was 8 years old. Although everyone in the family still disagrees with the doctors final decision on what her sickness was, (Anorexia Nervosa) but let me tell you, it was a long and horrible death. If I remember correctly she was 68 pounds at her death.
Now, my grandmother was a very healthy and active woman. She played soft ball, basketball, and she was a bowler. (grandfather still has the trophy's out after all these years, just as he still wears the wedding ring. He never got remarried.) She was also a very healthy woman from what I am told. Never overly heavy, nor overly thin, but athletic in physique.
The onset was sudden. She started not feeling good, and then nearly every time that she would eat she would throw up. They thought that it was the flu at first, but after a little more than a week they realized that something was wrong. That is when the doctor trips started.
Two years they kept her alive trying to figure out what was wrong with her. My grandfather says that he had some of the best doctors on the east coast trying to figure it out, and he went through a lot of doctors because no one could figure out what was wrong and they were getting desperate.
He spent most of his lifesaving's trying to save my grandmother but to no avail. After she died, he had only a few short years, (2 or 3) before retirement. He retired in 1980. He still had his house, and at the time the money he was bringing in from Soc Sec and pension were sufficient for him to live a fairly comfortable life.
This is no longer the case. Because of inflation in the cost of everything, his monthly payments are not enough. As of right now he owes just under 100k to the banks because he has had to take money out on his house multiple times just to survive. It kills me because there is so little that I can do to help in a financial way, I do what I can but I am the only one because my whole family is having financial trouble other than me. I'm by no means rich, just very frugal, or as my wife likes to put it, a cheap bastard
But, when someone gets desperate, we normally have enough to give them a small bump to help them out for a bit.
I have tried to talk him into selling his place and moving back up with his family in Maine. He just wont do it. He says that this house is all that he has to pass onto the children, (My mother, and two uncles). Me, I say to hell with them Grampy, sell the place and live in comfort, if they don't understand, then fuck em. But he wont do it.
So, he keeps going further into debt, and they let him. The banks know he wont live forever, and eventually they will get their cut. I'm sure that they would be willing to loan him every bit of equity that is in his place.
This is my point. How many do own their stuff outright? How many are there that will end up with all that they worked for being taken in the end?
Who owns what?
