@nerdygardner wrote:
Were we given bad advice from her moms financial guy?
It looks that way. Since you don't know what type of account your mother-in-law had - "some sort of retirement account" - it's hard to say what could have been done differently.
You can't create an inherited IRA with cash. The IRA, if that's what it was, has to be divided up and retitled by the IRA custodian, as fanfare said. Generally with any type of tax-sheltered retirement account, once the money is out of the account it's out and taxable, unless it's rolled over to another retirement account with the same owner within 60 days. But you can't do a rollover from an inherited IRA. It's probably too late to do anything about it now.
Another person who frequents this forum, @dmertz, knows much more about retirement accounts than I do, and might have something to add.
