Karma Will Pay
My grandma passed when I was 16. My grandma was a hard-working, no-nonsense kind of lady. She ran her own upholstery business for 50 years and had five kids. My mom was the middle child and her and my grandma always clashed.
I honestly think it was just my mom’s sense of entitlement, wanting more than she earned or more than the other kids, and my grandma refused to play along. With five kids, she ended up with 10 grandkids, and when she was dying she drew up a will.
Being a practical lady, she decided to allocate her assets based on what she perceived would benefit each child/grandchild the most. For me, she created an education trust because she knew I wanted to go to college.
For my brother, however, she ended up leaving him her delivery van from her business because he was in a band and wanted a touring vehicle. Then she got to my mom, and all hell broke loose.
My mom got some heirloom jewelry, and that was it. Now, my mom was obsessed with jewelry so I think my grandma thought she’d like it. But needless to say, my mom was livid.
She flat-out said my trust (around 30k) was worth so much more than a van and jewelry and it simply wasn’t fair for my grandma to leave me so much. At the time, I said grandma knows college is expensive and it was her choice how she split her assets, not mine.
Fast forward to my second semester of freshman year of college, I was 18. I had actually received scholarships that paid for my entire tuition so I expected my trust to last me well through undergrad and on to grad school if I wanted, which I did.
I ask my mom how I obtain access to it now so I can control it myself now that I’m 18. My mother’s answer made my jaw drop to the floor. This is when my mom told me that the trust was empty.
It turns out that my mom had been withdrawing funds the entire time and claimed they were education expenses. The way she did this was…incredible. She is a college professor, and in high school, I had taken some classes at her school to get a jump on college.
My mom actively encouraged it and had me even take classes in the summer. Because I was the child of faculty, my actual out-of-pocket costs were $25 a credit hour. However, my mom obtained the bills for each of the courses before her faculty discount and withdrew funds from my trust for that amount.
Then for the first semester of my freshman year, she obtained the bill before scholarships and used that to finally drain the account completely. I was totally stunned and couldn’t believe she’d just admit to it. I demanded my money back. Her next response was even more blood-curdling.
She then tells me she “used it to benefit the whole family.” Yeah, by buying herself a plot of land right in the nicest part of the city. She explained that now she could use the land as collateral for a construction loan to build her dream house, which apparently somehow benefits me in her mind.
As I was 18 and had no money to go after my mom in court, I was left devastated and decided the best I could do is not ever return home from school. I got a job and an apartment and cut my mom out, except for occasional holidays. Fast forward again to five years later at Christmas.
My mom had her “dream house” and this was right at the peak of the housing boom so it was super overvalued She was so proud of herself, bragging about her big financial windfall. I couldn’t have been more upset. But only a few months later, it all comes crashing down.
Turns out, my mom never paid taxes on the money she took from my account or the property taxes for the land and house. The county sent her a letter about the property taxes stating she needed to pay up. She probably got letters before this and ignored it, I don’t know.
This was a pretty high tax area and her house had a very high value, so she owed back taxes and penalties over $100k. She obviously didn’t have that lying around. She hired a lawyer and was trying to work her way out of it, and tried to blame anyone and everyone but herself.
My mom complained that it was the bank’s fault because on every mortgage she ever had, they took property tax out with the monthly mortgage payments. However, in this case, my mom didn’t actually have a mortgage…
She was paying off a construction loan and was responsible for her own property taxes. She ended up dragging out this court battle for a bit because she was freaking out about how to pay the bill. She then asked for the house value to be reassessed.
During that time, the housing market crashed big time and her once very overvalued $700k house was now worth $220k on the new assessment. But here’s the kicker. She somehow believed that now her back taxes would be adjusted to this new value.
But obviously, they took taxes based on the value of the house at the time and only adjusted any future taxes for the new value. This is when reality finally hit her and she realized she had to sell the dream house to pay off taxes.
She ended up getting the $220k for it but she still owed $150k on her construction loan and $100k in taxes. So she was left with no house and $30k left to pay on a construction loan for a house she no longer owned.
She declared bankruptcy and moved into an apartment and spent the next few years paying off her debts—she had credit card debt and other stuff too. She’s now retired with no savings, bored and lonely, still blaming the entire rest of the world for her mistake.
I still refuse to visit her but I will take her calls occasionally. I did go on to finish school, get a good job, and have my own house that I actually pay taxes on.
I’m not happy she took my money and I don’t forgive her for that but I was happy to see she paid a huge price for taking from her own child. You know what they say: Karma always gets you in the end.