I'm still bogged down on getting required minimum distributions set up for the two inherited IRAs. Vanguard has been easy to work with. Fidelity, not so much so. In fact, they've been horrible. Each time I phone about my inherited IRA, I wait until the end to re-ask the question regarding my mom's IRA (who exactly has inherited it and where should the funds be going), at which point I'm so frustrated - and so is the person on the other end of the phone - that we get no where.
I had one of the attorneys apply for a tax ID number for The Estate of... so was able to set up an account for all those little piddly checks to go into. And now I wait for checks to come from the accounts outside the trust. Once I got the ball rolling on this, it was fairly easy.
But REMINDER - don't go to an estate planner to help you settle an estate. Go to an attorney, preferably the attorney who set up the estate in the first place, if at all possible, and some of this, like the EIN for the estate, can be done immediately. There's no reason to wait.
Anyway... spent many weeks trying to figure out the best way to file the NY State Estate Tax Returns. Now we wait and see what NY State has to say about all this. Because I had no clue, Mom's extension was filed without payment. I can't even remember if we made the same mistake with Dad's... or if we sent money with his extension. Or after the fact. But I still have work to do finalizing his return. NY State makes this all so confusing. NY is not the best place to die.
I've been doing my own estate planning over the several months. I'm still not at the point where I feel comfortable explaining what I know... so obviously I haven't mastered the material. BUT I seem to be more conversant with my Florida attorney about pour-over wills and inherited IRAs and splitting trusts so I must have picked up some level of knowledge. An interesting fact is that the legalese in my parents' documents seems far more confusing than in my own. Is that because I know what I'm trying to direct in my own - or has the language actually gotten simpler over the past 21 years since my parents set up their estates? (As an aside, or maybe it isn't even, while speaking to the New York attorney this morning, he made a comment about how much more straightforward individual trusts (like I'll soon have) than joint trusts, which is what I'm dealing with in my parents' case.)
I've done a far bit of mourning in the past month. In the Jewish official way, I ended my nearly 17 months of being a mourner on August 2nd. That was a tough weekend. The actual anniversary of my dad's death was much easier. I spent it on the beach, a place that holds so many memories of my time on earth with my parents. I was at a beach I'd never been to before... but for the first time in a long time, I was able to feel truly happy and at peace and not anxious or stressed about what I'm doing in my job as trustee or administrator or personal representative or executrix or whatever title I'm going by. And then I came home! <sigh> I hear the sea calling me back.