Estate Litigation Legal Questions

I can appreciate your surprise and concern. There must be a good reason, but more important to you might be taking the necessary steps to close out the estate. I suggest you hire a lawyer to look into this and help you reach closure of the estate as soon as possible. If you need legal assistance, please do not hesitate to call. I have practiced wills, estate, probate, and estate planning law for over 42 years.  ... Read More

Assuming that your father did not have a will and was unmarried at the time of his death, the house would ultimately belong to you and your siblings equally.  In order to actually take title to the property you will have to go through probate. The only way to get the property in your name alone would be to have your siblings sign away their interests.  Given the fact that you have been paying for the home you may be able to get some offsets in your favor even if they will not agree to sign over their interests.  We can certainly help you to probate the property and/or negotiate a resolution with your siblings if you are interested. Thanks, Jon... Read More

you can make a partial distribution, but do it equally to any and all beneficiaries and get each beneficiary to sign a release.  Also - it is the executor's duty to ensure that the recipient of any money does not have any outstanding child support judgments against him or her.  you must do a search, or risk the consequneces if there are such judgments, and you make payment to a beneficiary that should have gone to satisfy the judgment. ... Read More

Once your mother passed away, her will became unchangeable.  Your father cannot change the terms of her will.  If it says all the necklaces are to go to you then that is what is supposed to happen.  However, your mother's wishes can still be undercut simply by your sisters gaining possession of a necklace in which case you may have a difficult time getting it.... Read More

You are right, the bank should not have released the funds, but they might not have known if the signature was forged.  Since your brother is acting improperly, your recourse is to seek to have him removed as the executor.  That would require a petition with the court, and you will most likley need to hire an attorney to assist you with that.  ... Read More

All the caveat does is stop the probate of the will.  If another person wants to probate a will, they have to petition the court and ask to have the caveat removed.  The caveator would then respond to the petition made to the court indicating why the will should not be probated. ... Read More

Contact the insurance company that holds the policy, tell them that your father died and your mother is the beneficiar.  The insurance company will send your mother some claim forms and you will be required to rpovide the original death certificate.  Then they will send your mother a check.  it is not difficult.  ... Read More

I am not sure it meets the technical terms of a conflict since your sister is the daughter. Thus her being the trustee and accountant is probably fine. She may be operating unethically in some other way though; perhaps unduely influencing mom?  Having said all that my feeling is that anytime anybody has reason to question a relationship like this means there is a problem. It's too bad your sister is not aware of it and would then hopefully either distance herself or provide information/documentation to make others feel comfortable. Good luck to you. -John... Read More

It is presumptively your money to keep. Unless sister could prove that it was intended only to have you on there for convenience, to pay bills and such, it is yours. Since it is likely impossible for her to prove this I would say it is yours to keep legally speaking. If you want to give her 1/2 you can but I do not see a legal obligation to do so.... Read More

You would probably need to demand a formal accounting through the Court.  Call the surrogate's office of the county in which the estate was probated and see if any accounting has been filed.  The clerk may be able to help you file a request for a formal accounting.  If they can't help you , you may need to hire a lawyer to file the claim. ... Read More

If the brother passed away, there may not have been a need to file his will if he owned everything jointly with his wife.  The decision not to probate the brother's wll may have been done without condering the other property.  Another answer may be that when the parents died, and lef the property to his children with life rights for one daughter, the ownership of the property might have been changed so that when the brother died, his rights passed to the other siblings.  you should get a copy of the deed to the parents property and see if the surviving siblings get the property. ... Read More

If the will states that there is to be an equal distribution between you and your brother then you are entitled to half of everything.  You are entitled to half of the value of the house, now, and if he chooses to sell it in the future he can, but you do not owe him any 3% payment of potential commissions.... Read More

Over one-half of Americans do not have a Will.  It's self-evident that having a Will or some other form of organized estate planning is crucial to saving your loved ones headaches and expenses like the one you're going through with your family.  With the "paradigm" family of old giving way to a wide variety of family relationships today, its even more important to get your estate in order.  In your situation, I'm assuming that your parents' names were the only names on the deed.  If that is the case, when your father passed away, the property was owned solely by your mother.  Since she passed away without a Will the property would pass to her children (natural or adopted) only.  Step children would not inherit the property.  In order for the deed to be retitled or sold, it would be necessary to open a probate proceeding in the county where your mother resided at the time of her death and possibly in the county in which the property is located. That may not have been how Mom and Dad intended it but those are the unfortunate consequences of allowing your estate to pass via the laws of intestate succession.   ... Read More

How and to whom your fathers assets passed at his death can be dictated by our laws of intestate succession, the manner in which the assets were titled or beneficiary forms for the assets.  I'm guessing that some or all of these impacted your father's estate.  I'd need to know more about the details of your father's assets in order to give you full advice on this question.  I can give you some general information though. Yes, you can disclaim assets transferred to you by your father via most of the means of transfer I mentioned above.  A written disclaimer should be filed/transmitted within 6 months of his death generally.  If your desire is that your mother receives everything, then a disclaimer may help with that AND it will have the effect of reducing the inheritance tax because there is no tax payable on transferred between spouses.  It may be unnecessary to use the disclaimer to achieve your desired outcome.  Your mother can pay the tax from the assets she received.  It doesn't matter who pays the tax, so long as the tax is paid.  If she is refusing, that's another story entirely. You can also transfer the assets outright to your mother without tax consequences provided they do not exceed a certain dollar value.   ... Read More