The Administrative Matter (Part 2)

When someone goes through the process of ending their life--someone who boasts of being married to the "light of his life" and leaves behind five daughters who are everything to him--one can assume the person in question has a few things going on. No matter how wonderful one thinks the person happens to be.

I will always think the world of the Late Attorney Jon. Always. Suicides are never easy to process, especially when it isn't up to me to absorb everything and figure out the whys. I was merely a client of his who happened to live 1,700 miles away. And for that matter, he rarely charged me for anything he did for me. I remember one time, when our business was in much better shape, I absolutely insisted he bill me. He sent me a bill for $25 for about 20 hours of work. I paid him $50.

What I came to find out was the Late Attorney Jon was disorganized. I also found out he had a few demons--but that is not something I wish to dwell on. I heard this and that from various sources and was able to fill in the pieces. There is nothing like telling someone, "Well, I've heard rumors" and the other person (in this case it was from Attorney Flip and Jack) voluntarily filled in the blanks. Neither asked what I knew--which wasn't nearly as much as they independently shared with me. The bigger picture of Attorney Jon doesn't make the man I knew any less likeable. It just made him human.

He will always be that guy at 10 p.m. one Friday night who had two giggling daughters in his car, crawling all over him, reading through my contract, giving me pointers, while waiting for his eldest child to finish basketball practice. We talked business on the phone that night for an hour and a half. That phone call years ago saved my hide this past month.

That said, the Late Attorney Jon left me a mess. He did not take care of those two deeds. We were vulnerable. If Mrs. C. was involved and responsible for some sort of major car accident, the victims in question would be able to go after all of Mrs. C's assets--including a home where I was paying the mortgage and the taxes. It would not matter one bit if I had a loan on the house. The house belonged to Mrs. C. If Mr. and Mrs. Cox didn't pay their income taxes, their would be a lien on the property I own.

And, to add to this, I was told by more than one attorney though the contracts we had with these people clearly stated the house would be ours if they defaulted, if the Cox's or Mrs. C wanted to reclaim the properties and pay us the back payments, they could then go after us for the rent we received. And, getting this resolved would probably involve lawsuits, judges and a lot of expense. One lawyer actually said to me, yes, it is nice and everything on paper but the Late Attorney Jon was your lawyer and judges aren't going to be excited about any contract he was involved in.

Yay us.

After Jon died, I asked Legal Eagle if she would take care of this. She said no she wasn't touching it. It was too messy for the amount of time and attention it deserved. I countered with it was a small administrative issue and she repeated the potential consequences at stake. I knew this of course, but I was going with the optimist best-case scenario.

After a year, I found out that the Alabama BAR had assigned Flip to Late Attorney Jon's affairs. When I met with him last summer, I found out how disorganized Jon was. In the conference room, stacked top to bottom, were box after box of the Jon's files. And, those were only the recent ones. There were plenty more boxes in storage. When I spoke with Flip, I assured him I had seen the quit claim deed for the Cox's six months before Jon died. Flip went through ever single file Jon had in the course of time and found many things related to me. But that deed has never been found.

To be continued