Small town nowhere America, everyone thinks they know everyone's business.
This customer now with memory issues mainly due to a stroke, is a life time friend of one of the last customers who died after battling alzheimers for years, so bad at the end, they had him restrained in a ward and on watch 24/7 and he knew nobody, not even his own name.
About a decade before that customer was diagnosed he did a land trust of sorts, nothing I'd ever heard of the way it got done, the kids took over the land before he died and made all the decisions, I was told, thought it was cut and dried, iron clad, apparently the kids all did too the way they fought and argued. Long story short, the "chosen" son was to get the lions share, maybe 6 million in land and assets, and what pissed off everyone else in the family.
The "chosen" son was a mooch and leach, who'd never pay anyone, never had all his life, the last job I did, was for the mother, one sibling and the chosen son, equal shares to be paid from each equally, not my idea, their's, really long story short, the son took the money to pay me out of his mothers account, thinking she'd never know, she found out, I was paid in full and how it was done and about 8 months later she died.
I'd have paid good money to be at the reading of that will, but found out later how it all went down, the mother was upset over how her son had taken her money to pay me, so she somehow cut him out cold, his lions share went down to the 20 acres we were doing the work on last and a note to her son, "hope it was worth it love mom". I found out because the other kids had no clue what it meant and were shell shocked it could even happen, the son was beyond upset, hired all sorts of lawyers and in the end, had to pay them with no inheritance but the 20 acres he had to sell to pay his lawyers.
Fast forward to this ordeal, and this son, who's aware of how his dads best friend handled his estate and what that mother did to that son, not so sure since he's in line to get the lions share is going to step too hard out of line to take over and toss his dad off the throne, without using extreme diplomacy with his mother, just a hunch and apparently as of today, he's not gotten it from her, again just guessing.
As of today, I'm not legally bound to do anything, have no contract, thought maybe a month ago I should have something in writing, today glad I didn't get it in writing, because I'm not legally obligated to do a thing for anyone. I've thought this out a dozen ways since it started, still not sure I fully understand it all or what to do about it or if I made a huge mistake somewhere along the line, but the more thinking I've been doing on this, the less eager I am to sign a contract with anyone in the future. If I'd be bound with a contract either before or after his stroke, I'd be forced to do the work and deal with EVERYONE till it got done for as long as it took, preventing me from doing other work elsewhere, not to mention liable for delays and everything that comes along, this way I could just pack up and leave and wait for the dust to settle.