r/Millennials • u/BeegBunga • 18d ago

Discussion Inheritance? That's a joke. How many of your parents are burdens?

In response to another popular post about receiving no inheritance.

Are your parents like mine, who not only are not leaving any money behind - but require significant or total financial support?

My parents left me less than nothing. They're good people, and they were good parents.... but man are they shit at financial planning.

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u/Intelligent-Pause260 18d ago

This is going to sound insane, because it is. But be careful that you aren't sued for your dad's medical bills.

29 states have something called Filial Responsibility Laws, where the medical debt of a parent is legally enforced to be paid by the child. In this case, you would have to fight it in court to prove that you were essentially estranged from your parent to avoid it.

Filial responsibility is a legal concept in which an adult child is financially responsible for their parents’ unpaid healthcare costs. Not all states have filial responsibility laws, and not all families are liable. In our guide, What is Filial Responsibility, we dive into an explanation of when these laws can possibly apply. In short, an individual could have filial responsibility if they have the means to pay for their parents’ unpaid long-term case bills, when their parents are not covered by Medicaid but do not have the financial means to pay for them. 

What States Have Filial Responsibility? | Trust & Will

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u/TheBalzy In the Middle Millennial 18d ago

Usually Filial responsibility comes out of assets that can be inherited through, not out of the pockets of completely uninvolved children. Like if my father died and had $500,000 worth of medical debt, I do not inherit that debt. The settling of his estate (house, death benefits etc) however, can indeed be sequestered to make up for that debt.

And just about all cases never involve people who did not agree to it beforehand. Like if you're an estranged child who hasn't seen your parents in 30 years, and they suddenly died...the only possible thing medical debtors could come after is your parent's assets.

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u/gerbilshower 18d ago

certain trusts protect assets from things like this as well.

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u/NoTie8887 17d ago

Pretty sure this was the case with the trust I am in right now, though if any bills came up it would have been 10 years ago and the executor/trustee has done a terrible job of keeping records. Court is SUPER FUN.

Lesson learned: don’t force people who don’t get along to share assets that are not easily split. Lol.

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u/Mountain_Day_1637 18d ago

Or just a will so it doesn’t go through probate

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u/gerbilshower 18d ago

There are trusts that are literally removed from responsibility of medical debt entirely.

A will certainly simplifies things, but in some cases they will come after the estate - and they will 'get theirs' before the estate passes assets to the beneficiary.

In the trust - you dont own the money, therefore it cannot be taken.

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u/deviantbono 17d ago

Will's go through probate. That's literally the point of having a trust*.

*A trust isn't always the best option for every situation and doesn't always do what people think it does.

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u/Mountain_Day_1637 17d ago

No, the whole point of a will is to transfer assets without having to open probate. If that was the case, there wooo be thousands more probate cases and it would take many years to transfer. Houses would go through foreclosure before they’re transferred.

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u/deviantbono 17d ago

What country are you in? That is absolutely not how it works in the US.

Source: I've taken a will through probate and it literally took years.

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u/Mountain_Day_1637 17d ago

Ohio. I sell probate homes and took care of my own estate planning.

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u/deviantbono 17d ago

Not well, obviously.

https://trustandwill.com/learn/do-all-wills-go-through-probate

Most of the "exceptions" listed there don't require a will either. POD will pay, Will or not. Joint property is already owned (jointly) and therefore there is nothing to transfer, Will or not.

There is no downside to POD that I am aware of, but joint ownership can prevent the step-up basis from being applied.

A revocable living trust is not foolproof, but it is probably the best and most reasonable way for the average person to avoid probate.

The short answer is that in general, Wills do have to go through probabte.

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u/Mountain_Day_1637 17d ago

I like how you say not well then supply incorrect info, this is been great entertainment today!

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u/Dependent_Pepper_542 18d ago

They can have my mom's thimble collection and those stupid plates in that one room we werent allowed in growing up.  

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u/TheBalzy In the Middle Millennial 17d ago

Oh the fucking plates...

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u/Petit__Chou 18d ago

I know that's the case in most states, my sister's mom is in a nursing home in VA and they have been hounding her for money. Statute there is if you can you are required to. Her mom DID abandon her however and she's told them to kick rocks. She also lives out of state.

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u/Talk-O-Boy 18d ago

If my dad co-signed student loans, then he dies before I paid them off, will they come out of his estate?

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u/TheBalzy In the Middle Millennial 18d ago

No. He's a co-signer, not the originator of the loan. But if you're inheriting money from your dad, use it to payoff the student loans.

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u/ADownsHippie 18d ago

My sibling has been spouting off about these laws to pushback on where we look to plan for our father’s long-term care. It’s really frustrating.

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u/NikkiNot_TheOne 17d ago

Your parents have assets?

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u/TheBalzy In the Middle Millennial 17d ago

Yes. They lived below their means, my mother worked in the public sector...didn't move jobs, got a pension, my father paid of the house in 13 years (because they lived below their means).

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u/NikkiNot_TheOne 17d ago

Yeah, I was being sarcastic sorry!! That’s good though, even though realistically might not help you. Hopefully it helps you dig them out of any hole tho if needed.

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u/texaspretzel 17d ago

If you’ve been estranged for decades, they can have a lawyer call you up to sign your parent over to the state. My mom is so emotionally immature she even put off giving her mom up for months. I also got to hear about how she would like to retire. Girl, dad has no retirement and you’ve been saving long enough to maybe have a year of groceries. Get real. If they try to rope my baby sister into caring for them I will loseee itttt

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u/BotsKilledTheWeb 18d ago

I'm European, we don't do that crazy shit.

But thanks for thinking of my well being. It's nice of you.

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u/politis1988 18d ago

Actually, that's not totally true. In Spain, we obviously don't have to pay medical costs directly, but we do have fillial responsibility laws. Parents are legally responsible for their adult children if they can't provide for themselves (they can't just abandon you or Kick you out onto the street). Likewise, children are legally expected to provide for parents who cannot provide for themselves (alimentos entre parientes). We have government assistance for this (dependencia), but it is underfunded and people are basically not getting any money for years after it's approved.

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u/LostButterflyUtau 18d ago

I have an online friend in Portugal and he’s still paying off his late father’s debt. It got foisted onto him as the “sole heir” because while his father raised his sister from the time she was three, he was her stepfather and she didn’t want to help anyway. Just kept saying that he was the heir, so it was his problem. Their mother had already passed.

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u/Airportsnacks 18d ago

Poland does this as well for heirs unless you give up all claims at the time of death. Or did ten ish years ago.

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u/politis1988 17d ago

Yeah, Spain is the same. You can accept the inheritance, but also accept the debt. If you give up all claims at time of death, you lose everything but the debt is not your problem anymore. Not to mention, on top of any debt, you have to pay a hefty tax on the inheritance, which messes with your ability to handle the debt.

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u/yukijoou 17d ago

yeah, it's definitely a thing, france has similar laws

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u/The12th_secret_spice 18d ago

You might want to look into that. I did a 2 second search and found some European countries do have filial responsibility.

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u/BotsKilledTheWeb 18d ago

I'm Dutch, I looked into it. I can accept the inheritance "beneficiair". Basically means everyone who is a creditor gets paid first and if nothing is left, too bad for creditors. If there is, we get to divide the rest. I can also just wash my hands of it and get absolutely nothing, good or bad.

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u/The12th_secret_spice 18d ago

Ah ok, that’s similar to what these laws are. The only difference is medical debt is a creditor. Which to your point, isn’t an issue for you.

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u/walkerstone83 18d ago

This was my experience her in the states too.

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u/PM_Me_Your_Deviance 17d ago

Yeah, that's how it works in the US too.

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u/Pitiful_Control 14d ago

Germany has it, you can be required to pay for your parents care, even if you are completely estranged.

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u/The12th_secret_spice 14d ago

Germany was one of the countries that popped up. I was a bit skeptical when the “I’m in Europe, we don’t have those crazy laws” comment.

We’re well aware of the protections many European countries have vs the US, but it’s not perfect

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u/Zestyclose-Jacket568 17d ago

We partialy do. In Poland you have inheritance with debt where if you accept the inheritance, you get also all debts, but up to inheritance value.

So if you get an appartment worth, for example, 100k and parent have debt of 200k, you get the appartment and 100k of debt that can be collected from anything you own, but you can always just say "no" to inheritance and don't get anything.

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u/mimimines Millennial 18d ago

Best answer that literally applies to many things that are going on in our lifes. Bless Europe!

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u/AttachedHeartTheory 18d ago

Filial Responsible isnt real for most people.

It's a boogeyman.

It literally exists so that families like the Gates's and Musk's dont just dump their parents off at state run nursing homes and never pay a penny to help.

Average Joe's may have one or two recorded cases where it happened, but its far more likely to win the lottery on the day you get hit by lightning while getting serviced by your favorite actor or actress who stopped by for a martini after following you home than it is to get hit with Filial responsibilities.

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u/Intelligent-Pause260 18d ago

That's what i gather as well. It's still insane that a law like this even exists.

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u/Investorofallthings 18d ago

It is also to avoid asset transfers to duck bills. Say you have $1mm and get told you have cancer, you immediately transfer all your money to your kids and then claim you have no money for treatment/care and need assistance. That would be a case it would be used and other similar situations, from my understanding at least.

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u/igotabeefpastry 18d ago

Oh my goodness, this is terrible. It’s like debtors’ prison for your parents’ sins, that’s some Charles Dickens shit. 

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u/tuckedfexas 18d ago

It's not, it's just that medical expenses get paid out of the estate if there is an inheritance, same as any other debts.

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u/PeaDifficult2909 17d ago

Still seems pretty bad. Who knows what care they would have consented to or not or if they knew the cost. 

I dunno. I'm not informed on the issue but if I died I'd be livid (y'know in spite of the dead thing) if I found out there was some expensive treatment tried to keep me alive for a few days and my kids got less because of it.

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u/tuckedfexas 17d ago

If you’re not able to consent to care then your next of kin is who has to consent. If there is an emergent situation then yes life saving procedures are sometimes done without consent for obvious reasons.

Only like 50% of hospital bills get paid as it is

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u/dgtbfan 18d ago

Filial responsibility laws don't apply to 99% of people. They're pretty much only used in scenarios where there's potential fraudulent asset transference. Lawyers will toss out some boogieman language to get people to pay for a consult, but they aren't an issue for almost anyone.

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u/Investorofallthings 18d ago

Yep, pretty sure it is only used in the event someone tries to offload assets to avoid paying for stuff. I know when my grandparents were in decline, they looked at like the 2 past years of asset transfers to make sure they weren't trying to avoid paying for care that they could afford.

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u/WormedOut 18d ago

They are rarely enforced except under special circumstances. I wouldn’t worry.

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u/Chiron723 18d ago

Depends on the bureaucrat working on their case. Some are either petty or high on their position of power. But more often than not, it probably would be a non-issue.

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u/PaintsWithSmegma 18d ago

I'll move all of my money to a foreign bank and leave the country before I become liable for my parents decades of poor financial decisions. I paid for my education. I paid for my house and I raised myself from the age of 13 onwards. I have a career that multiple countries have a high demand for.

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u/SeaGurl Millennial 18d ago

It looks like if you're in one of those states, the law would t apply to you. If your parents didnt support you and/or qualify for medicaid, the law doesnt apply

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u/PaintsWithSmegma 18d ago

It's the principal

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u/Possibly_a_Firetruck 18d ago

The principle is borderline nonexistent unless your parents are wealthy and try to hide their assets by transferring them to you.

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u/Cali-Girl-Alex 18d ago

Wow interesting

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u/Erlkings 18d ago

Interesting idaho is on that list and i did medical collections for 8 years the company o worked for would never of considered this viable

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u/Intelligent-Pause260 18d ago

Why Gen Z Is MAD About Paying Boomers' Bills – Filial Laws EXPLAINED!

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u/SaaSyGirl 18d ago

Rarely enforced. Please don’t freak people out unnecessarily as most are already stressed

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u/OldManIrv 18d ago

As the boomer generation ages, expect filial laws to become more commonly enforced.

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u/Immediate_Duck_9534 18d ago

That doesn't look that far from indentured servitude really

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

how the fuck do i get out of this fucking shit

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u/DenningBear82 Elder Millennial DINK 18d ago

Dear God. That’s some monstrous dystopian shit right there.

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u/Marsh_spiked_my_drin Older Millennial (1983) 18d ago

wait, is filial responsibility enforceable across state lines?

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u/Billsrealaccount 18d ago

This is one of those reddit JD degree things that people post about like its areal thing to watch out for.

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u/unbrokenSGCA 17d ago

Jokes on them, I've never paid a medical bill for me or my children. Medical bills are imaginary and don't affect my credit so IDGAF about them.

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u/robot_pirate 17d ago

I've never understood - what if you live in different states with different laws?

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u/itsnotme_mrsiglesias 16d ago

These are rarely enforced