Well the phone call was pretty uneventful. After preliminaries about the weather (cloudy here, thank you, just like the stereotype) and football (how 'bout them Seahawks?) the executors and I got down to business.
The assessment for one parcel of land hit about $290,000. There are four parties at various levels of interest. They figured two are real buyers, the other two not. Sister asked for another appraisal and asked them to dig a little deeper to find out about the rumor of commercial zoning. We have a choice - sell now at close to the assessment price (the bird in hand approach) or wait a bit, get the title, then sell using a realtor - who might get a better price but will take a 10% cut (two in the bush approach). Would we get more, would we pay more, would we suffer more, would we have no buyers. (maybe, maybe, yes, possible.). This week the second parcel with the house, household items, barn, and buildings is going to be assessed - with two scenarios. One is house and grounds split, the other house and grounds together.
There were 3 savings accounts that they've rolled up into the money market sweep account. I figure that it was about $10,000 all told. They were still looking for some of the co-op accounts, and are rolling up mom's accounts too, including a mystery insurance account from 1969. They figure that mom's medical bills were at about $90,000.
Cars are going for auction probably for parts. Leftovers will be sold for scrap.
They figure that it will take about 15 months to wrap things up. Land is notoriously non-liquid; that seemed about right in my mind.
At the end I asked for a written summary of what we had discussed.
At lunch, my lawyer friend asked me to make sure that I clarified what these estimates are. Assessment or appraisal? We have two currents, one underneath the other. Assessments should be low for tax purposes, and are meant to be a limit (matter of fact the executors are trying to go under 675K, the limit when we have to *file* WI tax). Appraisal is for the realtor and the seller to try to get a fair (or better than fair) price. They can go high as what the buyer is willing to pay. And then what the buyer bought at will be what the land will be taxed (assessed) at.
Put $45 into savings from my tip box.
executor phone call
October 25th, 2005 at 04:54 am
October 26th, 2005 at 03:13 am 1130296417
October 26th, 2005 at 03:48 am 1130298511
I'm also thinking that it is in sister's interest to maximize what we get for the land while keeping the house and barn value minimal. While I'm interested entirely in "cashing out", it would be sister's best case scenario to get enough cash from the first parcel to renovate the house. And trust me, that will not be cheap.