"The son can say, 'Hey, Sis, I need $20,000 for my kids' college tuition.' But if he's in the middle of a messy divorce, the sister can say, 'You're not getting a dime of this,'" Sussman says. "It's like having the use of a company car. You can have use of it while you need it, but you can't go out and sell it."
DeLong says in about half of the cases he's seen, the parents were unnecessarily paranoid. In the other half, they had reason to be suspicious. It raises red flags for him, for instance, when the head of the family lies dying in a nursing home and it's the in-law who is asking questions about financial matters, from the more innocent questions, like "Do you know where the bank or brokerage statements are kept," to the more obvious, like "Isn't it true that you can't cut out an in-law?"
"Sometimes, they're more subtle. They may ask, 'Are you going to be the one handling the probate? Can my husband or wife hire their own lawyer?'" DeLong says. "The guise is they want to be able to figure it all out, and it can be an innocent question, but the tone of voice and the body language can indicate whether it's innocent or greed-oriented."
On one occasion, an in-law approached him at a funeral and pulled him aside and asked, "How much is my spouse going to get?"
"That's only happened once, but once is enough," DeLong says.