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0 pointsgiaour3y ago0 comments

So, if someone has a low or nonexistent income and vast inherited wealth, you would consider them to be poor?

0 comments

Not unheard of - people inherit great houses in fantastic locations that they have no money to keep and which they can't sell otherwise for various legal reasons. You're poor despite living in prime estate and despite theoretically having a net worth into 6 digits.

eru3y ago

What kinds of legal reasons?

giaourOP3y ago

The property's transfer or sale may be prohibited by the terms of inheritance.

IANAL and am mostly familiar with this type of situation from rom-coms about down-on-their-luck dukes who live in crumbling, unsellable castles, so I'm not sure if that scenario truly exists in law or if it's just a handy conceit.

kenjackson3y ago

I prefer the rule where you must spend $30 million dollars in 30 days, but have no trace of the money left — yet still have received fair value for your spending — in order to get the inheritance.

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eru3y ago

Yes, this seems much more common in fiction than in reality.

gambiting3y ago

You live in the place already but there are inheritance matters still waiting to be settled. Or you inherit 20% along with 4 other siblings, they don't want to sell but they won't contribute or live in the place. Or you might simply not have the money for the legal process to sell. The place might need work before you could even put it on the market but you don't have the money for it.

eru3y ago

You can put things on the market, even if there's work to be done.

> Or you might simply not have the money for the legal process to sell.

If your property is valuable, someone will be willing do that work for you in return for a cut of the proceeds. (And if your property ain't valuable, then the original comment doesn't apply.)

2devnull3y ago

If wealth were useable as a metric for poverty it would be used. It’s not. We define poverty based on income. Not because nobody has ever thought about it in the same lucid terms as yourself, nor is it because the prevailing ethnic group or class has selected their preferred definition and nobody can change it. Wealth that is not realized is sort of meaningless. Are the people of Venezuela wealthy? But they possesses all that oil. See the problem?

giaourOP3y ago

That's not true in most states in the US. Programs with means testing (TANF, Medicaid, and the like) don't consider you poor if you have assets.

You hear about this a lot when people require certain kinds of care that Medicaid covers but Medicare does not. People will sign over all their assets (real estate, cars, financial instruments) to their spouse, then get divorced. All because the government doesn't consider you poor if you have wealth.

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0 comments

gambiting3y ago

eru3y ago

What kinds of legal reasons?

giaourOP3y ago

The property's transfer or sale may be prohibited by the terms of inheritance.

kenjackson3y ago

1 more reply

eru3y ago

Yes, this seems much more common in fiction than in reality.

gambiting3y ago

eru3y ago

You can put things on the market, even if there's work to be done.

> Or you might simply not have the money for the legal process to sell.

If your property is valuable, someone will be willing do that work for you in return for a cut of the proceeds. (And if your property ain't valuable, then the original comment doesn't apply.)

2devnull3y ago

giaourOP3y ago

That's not true in most states in the US. Programs with means testing (TANF, Medicaid, and the like) don't consider you poor if you have assets.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse