The estate attorney asked me one question: “Did your daughter have permission to distribute anything from your mother’s estate?” I told him no, and I said she hadn’t even seen the will yet. He asked me to forward him the email before I responded to anyone. Then he noticed something I hadn’t—the four items marked with my daughter’s initials weren’t random belongings. They were four of the most valuable things my mother owned. The attorney told me to make sure nothing was removed from the house until the estate inventory was complete.
The next morning, he obtained the will and read it with me. My mother had left those four items to different people, and none of them were my daughter. Worse, one of the relatives she’d excluded from her list was actually the beneficiary of my mother’s jewelry collection. My daughter had already promised that collection to someone else. When I showed her the will, she said she had only been trying to prevent arguments later. I asked why she had put her initials beside things before she knew what the will said, and she couldn’t give me an answer.
The attorney sent a notice to the entire family explaining that nobody was authorized to remove, sell, or distribute anything until the estate was settled. My daughter deleted the email she’d sent, but I already had a copy. She apologized and said she thought she was helping me. I told her helping would have meant asking me what my mother wanted, not deciding it for her. We eventually divided everything exactly according to the will, and several relatives who had already been promised things had to give them back. My daughter thought she was getting ahead of the fighting, but she had actually started the fight before anyone had even read the will.
