brentm wrote:Dirt plots are overrated, especially when you're on the right side of the dirt.... and you can always fix your house.  but for goodness sake, don't let your insurance lapse.
Growing up in a family who lost their house to a fire... we were lucky... and we had insurance.  After that, spend money on tone.
Yes and try to get an estate plan thats solid with no boo shit typos or cut n paste errors.
In my case insurance and all was in place then someone became greedy and shitty and sued their own family to take the company over. We in fact did see that our parents had a solid plan in place... 
But all that can be changed after the fact and both parents are dead if all agree too..
Otherwise we could not proceed forward with probating our own Mothers will.
Complicated mirrored wills but with a few cut n pasted paragraphs which were not triple checked mainly by my Mother.
Now after all are dead you see there is a loophole or blunder only
my parents paid quite a bit to make certain nothing like this could happen to any of their children even knowing one or two of them were greedy and trying to ruin it for all.
Of course id have insurance as soon as we get permission to proceed.
I can say this to all here if your  parents are semi wealthy you better be too in order to handle estate and probate as if your not someone can snatch it all away and force you to take a deal which would be against all of your instincts to sign off on.
That is what we are going through right now because none of us have
say 50 thousand dollars each to hire an attorney to counter and even if we did the possibility of them eating all the $ up is about 80 %
and if that happens and two people are counter suing the company can be placed in insolvency and that means it depreciates at 100000 mph which means no one will buy it.
Let me tell you all here tonight no ones parents estate plan is solid
and in order where it cant be changed after they are dead and one or more heirs sues or tries to take over everything...
all it takes is someone to contest the will and shoot for the will that includes them for instance if someone had wills done every 3 years or so and one was done in 2006 and one in 2008  if the greedy kids dont like 2008 they contest after death or during or sue you before hand and then wait you out and if you probate and your Moms will says everything goes to her loving husband   then you get nothing....
Till hubby dies..... if in the meanwhile the greedy kids want to sue and keep suing and make sure Daddy never gets better and dies a year later then all it takes is money..
If I had independent money of my own where I could hire someone else Id hire someone else to look this option of which I consider blackmail over.
If we fight and countersue the company might go isolvent .. meaning we could not get any % or $ if we walk we get what was ours to begin with and belonged to our Mother before she married the guy.
But if you get married or your Mom say remarries and they remodel the home you grew up in with your other dad then its community property and the others can say well our dad invested into this house or property therefore we feel its ours too.
I can tell you that in our case the highest priced and paid attorneys 
have covered themselves where it would cost 50 grand just to get them as witness to state no your honor these are not his parents wishes they wanted it all divided equally among all children and all to get it from a trust.
The problem there is you deal with some adjuster who gives you 3k a month till you drop dead and not a penny more..
When you die it goes to any kids you might have...
So save all your dimes everyone because you will need them in case one person is greedy or trecherous in your family.
a heads up from someone who happens to be going through it.