Walter turned the first page toward me. Nana had placed the farmhouse into an irrevocable trust eleven years earlier, naming me as the sole beneficiary after her death. My mother had been allowed to live there and maintain the property, but she had never owned it. She could not sell it, mortgage it, or transfer it without the trustee’s approval. The listing she had proudly slid across the table that morning was legally meaningless.
Then Walter showed me something worse. Two weeks earlier, my mother and Dale had signed a purchase agreement on the Spokane house and promised the seller a large down payment from the farmhouse sale. They had already accepted an offer from a buyer, apparently assuming nobody would check the title until closing. Brynn had even posted online about “Mom’s big move” before any of them had authority to sell a single board.
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