DEAR JEANNE & LEONARD: I work in a small insurance office. I'm writing because one of my co-workers is insisting that I pay to have her coat cleaned. According to "Lauren," a product I use on my hair rubs off on my coat and then in turn rubs off on hers (we hang our coats in the same small closet). It's true that the product I use occasionally leaves a little residue on my coat, and it's possible some of it rubs off. But am I really responsible for this woman's dry cleaning bill? It seems to me that the world is a sticky, grimy place, and that it's normal for coats to get dirty and periodically need to be dry cleaned. What Lauren's complaining about could just as easily happen at a restaurant coat rack, and I doubt she'd expect anyone to reimburse her for cleaning if it did. It's not my fault that the office coat closet is so small, plus I try to keep my coat away from everyone else's. Do I really owe her money?
-- C.B.
DEAR C.B.: The world can indeed be a sticky, grimy place. Still, when it's possible to assign responsibility for the soiling of an individual garment, it's not unreasonable for the owner of the garment to expect to be reimbursed for the cost of dry cleaning -- and that includes expecting a restaurant to pay when a coat goes into the establishment's closet clean and comes out dirty.
Sorry, C.B., but you owe Lauren some money. In order to cut your losses in the future, though, consider leaving a garment bag in the office coat closet and hanging your coat in it.
DEAR JEANNE & LEONARD: My father left the family farm to my three siblings and me. Following his death, my sister's daughter "Chloe" and her family started living there. In exchange, they agreed to make the small mortgage payments on the farm. In the four years since then, Chloe's managed to make only a couple of payments, so her mother, who's the executor of the estate, has been making them for her. We've now found a buyer for the property, and guess what? My sister has announced that she's going to reimburse herself for those mortgage payments out of the proceeds of the sale. Shouldn't her daughter be reimbursing her, not the estate?
-- M.H.
DEAR M.H.: What's the word for chutzpah in the Texas hill country? Whatever it is, your sister and her daughter have plenty of it.
As you said, Chloe agreed to make the mortgage payments in exchange for living on the farm. If your sister chose to make them for her, fine. But being your father's executor doesn't entitle your sister to reimburse herself for those payments from the estate. That would be stealing (though families hate to use that word) -- stealing money that should be going to you and your siblings. Ask a lawyer what options you have to prevent her from doing this, then decide if you want to confront her. We vote for not allowing your sister to push you around.
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Family on 08/23/2017