My father Arthur Sanford Schneider and his brother Robert Schneider were given 232 Granada Avenue, Long Beach, California 90803 in my Grandma Fannie Nettie Ragin Schneider’s will.
When Grandma Fannie died in 1994, my sister Lynnellen Schneider was living in that home. She had two young children and was very pregnant with baby number three.
I am guessing my father told his brother, my Uncle Bobby, that my sister, a single mother, and her family needed the home at the time and eventually he’d get my uncle his half of his inheritance.
Uncle Bobby was not a forceful person and so Uncle Bobby waited and waited.
I remember my father telling me that the only thing his brother Bobby had to live for was that house and the money associated with it.
Somehow, my sister and her family continued living in the house and twenty years passed.
Skip to early 2014…..My father now has dementia and my sister is still living in the house. I ask my dad (now I am his caretaker) if he’d like me to take him to see his brother.
I will never forget the look on my dad’s face as he said, “I can’t see my brother. I just gave his half of his inheritance, the house at 232 Granada Avenue, Long Beach, to your sister Lynnellen. I don’t know how to tell him. I don’t know what to do.”
Then skip to April 17, 2014. My dad doesn’t know it yet, but his brother Bobby found out his inheritance has been stolen and wanders into West Hollywood in despair. His close to lifeless body is found there and he is taken to a county hospital as an unknown and dies there!
A few weeks later, on May 14, 2014, my dad decides to make a phone call to wish his brother a happy birthday but can’t get through, so calls the other phone number he has on file for my uncle’s life partner, Shelley (whose actual name is Jean Johnson).
Shelley tells my father that his brother is dead!!!!
My father goes out to California shortly after that and helps Shelley. He also gets his brother’s body out of the county morgue and gives him a proper burial.
In the summer of 2014, my father helps Shelley more and arranges to move her to a senior apartment in Long Beach, but due to his memory decline, as time passes, forgets he needed to help her move to that apartment.
Move on to March of 2015: I have now completely taken over the care of my father. I ask him “What about Shelley?” I help Shelley move. I also tell my father something does not seem right about him giving his brother’s half of the inheritance, my grandmother’s house, to my sister.
As time passes on, I take over the care of Shelley and learn that Shelley is aware that half of the house on Granada belongs to her since my grandmother’s will stated that if my uncle died, his half of the inheritance goes to her.
During that time, my brother William Schneider who is now handling my father’s financial affairs, tells me to NOT mention to Shelley that Lynnellen Schneider, my sister, has been given that house since there could be trouble. I respond that Shelley is not capable of making trouble, but I remember the conversation.
To make things easier for her, I offer to help Shelley pay her bills, and she and I go to the bank and she officially makes me her beneficiary. I did not think anything of this at the time.
I tell my father one day that he gave Lynnellen my uncle’s half of the inheritance before he died and my father’s dementia is so bad now that he doesn’t remember that, but I show him proof and he is quite upset and bothered that he did such a thing.
But…even though my dad doesn’t remember he gave the house to Lynnellen before my uncle died, he pays all of the property taxes for her each year. I am guessing she insisted he pay those taxes for her since she probably had no idea how high property taxes are in California and she’d lived in that house for free for over 20 years. (I am fairly sure that my father paid Lynnellen’s property taxes every year until even after he died in December of 2021 since my brother told me the 2021 taxes were paid with estate funds.)
Shelley never received a portion of the inheritance and I end up taking care of her until she died on June 9, 2019.
I continue to take care of my father who dies on December 13, 2021.
My nephew Cody and his kids move into the condo my father owned that had been shared by the family at 5400 E. The Toledo #305, Long Beach, California 90803 around the time of my father’s death. I am told I am no longer welcome to use that condo. I was told, just like my dad told his brother, that “Cody, who is a single father, and his children have no where to go and need to live in it and can’t share it with me.”
I learn after my father’s death about division of property, wills, trusts, probate, etc. I learn after his Colorado house is sold that I will not get my portion of my father’s inheritance until all his property is sold.
When I ask that the Long Beach condo he owned be sold as soon as possible, I am told by my brother William Schneider the estate trustee, who got me to sign over my rights as trustee of my father’s estate to him telling me that will make things easier, that I will no longer be notified about receiving my portion of the inheritance or be informed of estate matters until he figures out what to do since I didn’t agree to my sister’s son Drew Sainte Marie renting the condo for nine months at $2000 a month which would delay the estate closure.
($2000 a month is way lower than what rents are for similar rentals in the Belmont Shore area. An outside renter would pay anywhere between $3500-$4000 a month. I was told that the $2000 would pay the HOA, utilities, fees, taxes, and other expenses until the estate closes and would benefit the estate, but all I see is a delay.)
(I agreed to a three month lease, but Drew did not accept that. I was also told that the nine month lease could be extended for another nine months. I was told Drew would do work on the condo while living there to make it sell quickly, but this could go on for years!)
I asked that I receive copies of all financial proceedings related to my father’s death and everything related to the estate, but have received no response to this request.
I don’t want to delay receiving my portion of my father’s inheritance any longer than is required.
Will I end up waiting over twenty years like my uncle did and not ever receive my portion of the inheritance?
Does my sister Lynnellen Schneider even legally own the house at 232 Granada Avenue, Long Beach, California 90803? (My grandmother’s will stated that if my father and mother died, that my father’s half of her house-inheritance went to me, my brother, and sister.)
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