Curious Commonwealth asks: How was my spouse allowed to give away our retirement to a stranger?
Credit: vpm.org
Edward Linsmier / for NPR LAKE PLACID, FL – AUGUST 30, 2024: “I have a hell of a support group,” says Patti McFarland, 63, “I have a mare that listens real well.” McFarland’s husband of 36 years transferred his IRA worth over $300,000 to a pole dancer he met six months before his death from complications from cancer and diabetes at the age of 69 on January 1, 2022. McFarland was unaware she was no longer the beneficiary as she had sold her farm to take care of her husband before his death.
Imagine being married for more than three decades — and the day your spouse dies, you learn they’d given your entire retirement savings to someone you don’t know.
That’s what happened to Chesterfield resident Patti McFarland,
“I guess I have to discuss it in order to explain why it needs to be fixed,” she says. “It’s just an archaic rule that nobody’s corrected.”…
