I could write volumes on the lousy real estate mistake Laura and a fellow teacher I’ll call Annie made when they bought a house in Austin. With no experience in home ownership, they picked a place that resembled a backyard shed and was built just as efficiently. We were presented with it as a done deal when Laura needed some money for a down payment so it was too late to talk them out of this giant blunder. In their naivety, they had signed a contract to buy a money pit.
Annie spent countless holidays, vacations and weeks at our house during the early “house” years because her entire family lived out of the country. Our family embraced her as a second daughter and treated her with all the love and care that we gave our own children. She was needy for family love. We had plenty to give. What fools we turned out to be.
The house in East Austin was located in an area that they were both convinced would be rezoned commercial and it would be worth twice what they paid for it soon. It was an uneducated rookie mistake that never paid off. I still can’t figure out if Laura was in one of her manic states when she did this because she was normally so frugal, or if she was just a sheep that was led to the pen because she wanted to believe it would be a great investment. Nevertheless, on a teacher’s salary, neither young woman could afford the house payment on her own so they somehow were convinced to pay into annuities payable on death to the other. I bet you can see what’s coming.
A lot of water went under the bridge, literally, but a few years later they finally sold the house. Laura had spent a couple of years living in it alone and paying for all the repairs while Annie lived in a foreign country before returning back to Austin. Laura finally moved out and Annie took over the house. However, Laura’s name was still on the mortgage so she wouldn’t have qualified to buy anything else. The relief when it finally sold and that horrible burden was gone was immense. Time goes by and….
Laura died.
Although she had told us about the annuity when they bought the house, she mentioned later that she had changed the beneficiary back to us because she no longer had any financial responsibility to Annie. Unfortunately, somehow that never really happened. On her meticulous list of assets, Laura left the phone number for us and the name of the agent who had sold her the policy. What a shock I got when I made that call.
Annie too was very surprised to hear she was still the beneficiary when I notified her but assured me she would give us the money to us to help pay for the funeral. Annie, if you ever read this I still have several exchanges of text messages where you lovingly assured me that it would all be taken care of. She fully understood the money was no longer meant to be hers.
Yet, she changed her mind.
Annie’s last conversation with me was a month after Laura died when she said, “I have to take care of myself.” And she did. To the amount of $24,000. Ironically, that was the exact amount that Laura’s funeral and marker cost.
No matter what it is, you need to check your beneficiaries on a regular basis. Most jobs have life insurance on their employees, along with other assorted insurance plans that are thrown in during a tenure. The great question is: Who do you want to get that money if you were to die tomorrow?
Life Without Laura 