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tasmanian_bibliophile's review
3.5
‘What happens when your father dies and he’s in the Pilbara, 4,500 kms away?’
This is the story of Annette Trevitt’s two-and-a-half-year ordeal to sort out her father, John’s estate. Annett was seven years old in the 1970s when her father, fleeing bankruptcy, moved to Karratha, Western Australia leaving behind his wife and their three children. In Karratha, John reinvented himself. He had seven properties: very profitable until the mining boom ended.
When John died, Annette flew across from Melbourne to Karratha. John had nominated Annette as the sole executor of his will. She discovered that his estate was a nightmare: a mess of hoarded junk, debts, missing paperwork, and rundown properties of low value now that the mining boom was over.
‘I was flat, teary and overwhelmed.’
Annette, flying between Melbourne, where she lived with her teenaged son and Karratha, faced a nightmare.
I have no direct experience of being an executor. My younger siblings took on these responsibilities when our parents died (they lived in the same state) and found the process relatively straightforward. However, neither of our parents had any real estate interests at the time of their deaths and both had comparatively small assets. Discussions about mementos were civil and removal of personal effects happened quickly (because of the need to vacate rental properties). I can only imagine what a nightmare this process must have been for Annette. And, in addition to the administrative tasks, death of a parent takes a child into memories of the past.
But Annette was unable to grieve for her father at the time of his death:
‘The sheer workload of being the executor of his estate left little time or space to mourn his death.’
A difficult job, done well.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
This is the story of Annette Trevitt’s two-and-a-half-year ordeal to sort out her father, John’s estate. Annett was seven years old in the 1970s when her father, fleeing bankruptcy, moved to Karratha, Western Australia leaving behind his wife and their three children. In Karratha, John reinvented himself. He had seven properties: very profitable until the mining boom ended.
When John died, Annette flew across from Melbourne to Karratha. John had nominated Annette as the sole executor of his will. She discovered that his estate was a nightmare: a mess of hoarded junk, debts, missing paperwork, and rundown properties of low value now that the mining boom was over.
‘I was flat, teary and overwhelmed.’
Annette, flying between Melbourne, where she lived with her teenaged son and Karratha, faced a nightmare.
I have no direct experience of being an executor. My younger siblings took on these responsibilities when our parents died (they lived in the same state) and found the process relatively straightforward. However, neither of our parents had any real estate interests at the time of their deaths and both had comparatively small assets. Discussions about mementos were civil and removal of personal effects happened quickly (because of the need to vacate rental properties). I can only imagine what a nightmare this process must have been for Annette. And, in addition to the administrative tasks, death of a parent takes a child into memories of the past.
But Annette was unable to grieve for her father at the time of his death:
‘The sheer workload of being the executor of his estate left little time or space to mourn his death.’
A difficult job, done well.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
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