My family inherited everything from a relative with no instruction on how to divide the estate between an in-law sibling. This in-law has a track record of losing money and owes other family tens of thousands of dollars. He also owed the deceased even more and is considering bankruptcy from a failed business venture. To complicate things even more he is going through divorce. We are not sure if he will distribute anything we give him appropriately with his wife and child either. He is also planning on leaving the country to work. Very complicated.

The estate comprises property and cash. The property will never belong to him since we do not want to lose it. The cash is the difficult part to figure out.

Please help.

You should definitely get legal counsel to ensure that all your rights are protected. If you can't afford a legal counsel, then go to your local legal aid for assistance.

Was there a will? What did it say?

The will states that everything will go to one person. That same person is the executor of the will. Our probate lawyer says that there is really nothing anyone can do to change this. So we feel safe in that regard.
The difficulty really comes in how we are supposed to deal with the dividing up the assets.

So if I understand correctly your not asking how to divide it up from a legal stanpoint because your covered and thiers no chance of him coming back with a lawsuit,your asking how to divide it up in a fair way? Yes?

Yes.

I am confused as to the relationship of the 'in law' to the deceased.

The in-law and the deceased are related to each other. There are two immediate family to the deceased. My spouse and a sibling (aka the inlaw). My spouse will inherit the entire estate and is faced with dividing it among the rest of the family.

Oh - so the inlaw is YOUR inlaw but biologically connected to the deceased. I get it now.

The fair way to do it is divide the entire estate into equal portions and give one portion to each inheritor. Perhaps, make a stipulation that the inlaw pays his debts with his portion and retains the remainder.

As the executor it seems as though it is at his discretion though. Personally, I would give him his share and let him do with it what he will. He is an adult... people cannot make his decisions for him.

Here's your biggest problem. The will leaves everything to your spouse. If your spouse wants to divvy up the estate, then your spouse will be responsible for paying gift taxes for anything s/he hands out. Since the estate goes to your spouse, the estate will pay any taxes (if any) due on the inheritance. But if your spouse decides to give any portion of the estate to a third party, that will become a gift from your spouse to that person.

The state will not take an inheritance tax since this law was reformed. The gift tax is a concern but can be remedied by gifting the max amount each year into an account with the in-laws name. We believe this is the best option and most responsible use of the money. The remainder after each year can earn interest and this way it has to be budgeted and cannot be lost all at once.

We were thinking of setting up accounts for the in-laws wife and daughter as well for their portion to help with their future.

I trully worry about what is going to happen with all of this money.

I believe this is exactly why the estate was left my wife.

And it sounds like you have some good ideas,were kind of going through the same thing she's executor except we were left some good documents to follow there's still always loose ends.And what we are doing is keeping track of our personal time and expense i.e. gas,trips made,a storage unit etc.and making sure she <the exec.> gets reimbursed.but as far as her sibling it's a good thought to protect him from the money but you want to make sure it doesn't disrupt their family,if you hold back the money from him and setup the wife and daughter what happens if the all the sudden decide they don't need him so much and she leaves him your going to feel awful.just a thought.another words you would be taking away from him being the man of the house the provider.