All responses except one here indicate that I should push for resolution of this issue, even at the cost of family relationships.
This is the information I was looking for, as I questioned, is it just me or should we really be moving this issue to closure?
I don't quite understand the alarm from a legal standpoint that the estate has not been closed (I don't really know what that means), the house sold and the proceeds divided. (All of our names are on the title of this house.) Yes I think this should be done, but one of my brothers sees keeping the house in the family's possession as a long term investment for all of us. I don't agree, but what if I did? A lot of people inherit homes and hold onto them jointly, all names on the title. We have consulted lawyers a couple of times. First, just after my mother died and we told her lawyer my brother was going to live in the house for a year. Her lawyer said we should write up a lease and charge him rent, but he didn't stress the importance of selling the house immediately. Indeed, whoever you are, getting ourselves to this point with no real plan other than, we'll revisit this in a year, which was 5 years ago, was foolish. But here we are. My mother's lawyer is now deceased and in the same cemetery as my parents. Next we consulted a lawyer who knows about disability laws and how we should handle my disabled brother's inheritance so he didn't lose benefits. I won't go into what we did about the cash, but that lawyer said that when the house is sold, that brother's share should go into a trust and be distributed to him in very small sums and only in particular ways, such as buying him goods and services as opposed to giving him cash. Again, as far as I know that lawyer did not stress the critical nature of selling the house immediately and shutting down the estate. I do not place blame on my sister, the executrix at the time of my mother's death, for not pushing the issue harder.
She places family relationships at a premium, as I do, and thought we should continue to give my older brother a place to live until his health and finances improved. There was a time when I agreed with that approach - surely some of you have family whose well-being is more important to you than money - but that time has passed. One of you referred to us a door mats and in a sense you are right.
We saw ourselves more as compassionate siblings, helping because we could and because "he aint heavy he's our brother". Again, I am getting the information I asked for, the vast majority of people would say that the time has long passed when compassion turned to inertia or, bringing it full circle, not wanting to be the bad guy. I am very close with most of my siblings, this was a tight knit family and I am extremely sorry to lose that. The majority of you feel we never should have let this situation get beyond, ok so Mom's dead, we're selling the house and dividing the money. Well we did. And I have felt for a while it was perhaps a mistake, but others don't necessarily feel this way. I will not win any family popularity contests when I blow the whistle. And to whomever said my mother was to blame for this by not being more clear in her will about the sale of the house, that is just brutal. In fact, my mother did try to change her will concerning the house before she died. She tried to take my older brother's name off everything in her will so it wouldn't get caught up in a potentially messy divorce proceeding; and she tried to take the disabled brother's name off, because she knew an inheritance could wreak havoc with his ssi. At the time, however, she learned there was a lien on the house because the disabled brother, cared for financially by the state, had not paid adequate child support to the state. Go figure. No wording could be changed while there was a lien on the house. The lien has been taken care of. Anyway, she only tried to remove their names to protect them, and she trusted the rest of us to see that one way or another they got their one fifth. But she wan't as savvy as many of you, she didn't ever think six years after her death we would still have the house, and her lawyer never advised her to put wording of this type into her will. Isn't that why lawyers get paid the big bucks? I digress. You all may feel that I am not the cause of family discord if I speak out, as stated previously, I don't really care what the brother in the house thinks. But I will be seen as the author of the discord by another brother who has said if I do speak out and our brother is forced to pay up or leave, he is screwed, and that to him is unconscionable. I really do care about that. Can't help it