QUESTION
What do I do if I am an adult adoptee and the will was written 10 years before my mom’s death?
Asked on Jun 04th, 2014 on Estate Planning - Nebraska
More details to this question:
My adopted mother passed away in 1995. My father passed May 9th 2014. My also adopted brother just filed probate. I was read the will which was written ten years before my adopted mother’s death. I was written out of that will. My father repeatedly stated after my adopted mother’s death that he wanted to rewrite the will, but our youngest also adopted sister was in protection, and he could not find her. The will was never rewritten. I was also told that my brother took himself out of the will. My brother tells me he did not realize that he did that. There is a concerning issue going on here that is really bugging me. My brother has since asked me repeatedly to trust him which suggests to me something is not being done correctly. I cannot afford another thousands of dollars for lawyer expenses.
1 ANSWER
I assume that you mean that your adopted father wrote a will several years ago that excluded you and some of your siblings. He later indicated that he wished to leave some of his estate to you but never drafted a new will. The probate court will abide by the terms of the existing will unless 1) you can prove that the will is somehow invalid or fraudulent, should be set aside, and your father's estate distributed according to the state's laws of intestacy, 2) you can prove that your father did not mean to leave you out of the will and you should inherit some part of the estate (very difficult to do), or 3) you can prove that your father was legally incompetent at the time he executed the will and he did not know what he was doing or who he was making bequests to (also very difficult). Another possibility, depending on how the will is drafted, is to convince those who do inherit via the will to reject some of their inheritance and allow it to be passed on to you. However, if the will has a remainder clause, the rejected bequest will go to that person(s).
Answered on Jun 09th, 2014 at 6:46 PM