smithff33[at]aol.com (Herb Smith) wrote:
- quote -

Sorry, I didn't know that my first attempt had been posted.

Thanks to everyone for their help. I appreciate it.

Jim

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"Jim" <saga2222[at]hotmail.com> wrote:

- quote -

Why are you posting the same question again?

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My mother died last week in Indiana. I am one of three
children.

For a number of years my mom has given each of her kids and
their spouses a $1,000 Christmas check each year. I never
cashed my checks for Dec 2001, Dec 2002 and Dec 2003 (I was
waiting for a "great investment opportunity" to come along.
Also, I would have cashed them sooner since my mother had
been very sick for a number of months but I couldn't find
them in my messy office and I didn't think she would die.

Well, I found the three checks yesterday while looking for
something else and called my mother's estate executor.

He said that the checks would normally be valid even though
one was written three years ago. But because the checks
represented a gift and were not cashed before my mother
died, that the checks were now void.

Is this really true in Indiana?
Do I have any legal recourse?

More information:

My mom had three trusts that will be split evenly among her
three children. She also had a checking account that was not
part of the trust. It had a balance of about $9,000 at the
time of her death. My mom added my sister to the account a
few years ago to pay bills when she was in the hospital (My
sister lives in the same town as my mother and my brother
and I live in other states.)

Well, it turns out that the account was a joint account with
my sister with right of survivorship rather than my sister
just being added as a check signer (I don't believe that
this was my mother's intent for my sister to get the full
balance of the account versus being part of her estate but
it's okay with me since my sister was always their to help
my mom.)

But if it's true that the checks are no longer valid, I do
feel that the moral and correct thing to do is for my sister
to write me a check for $3000 for two reasons: One, if I had
cashed the checks 10 days ago the balance in the account
going to my sister would have been $6,000 rather than $9,000
and two, that's what my mom would want her to do.

Also, since the checking account is a joint account and my
sister is still alive, are not the checks still good even
though they represent gifts because one of the joint owners
is still alive?

Your advice is very much appreciated.

Jim
Dallas, TX

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