QUESTION

My biological father died a few years back. How can I find out if he left a will or land to me. When he was alive he stated that he had a policy.

Asked on Aug 19th, 2016 on Wills and Probate - Georgia
More details to this question:
I was adopted by by dad at the age of 4, but had a different biological father. We became close after I reached the age of 17 and developed a healthy father and daughter relationship as well as we could. We visited a couple of times a year. He has two other grown children who were brought up in Georgia with him. Their mother lived in N.C. My father married a woman after being a bachelor for many years. She had no children. My father told me that when he died, he had a life insurance policy for me and my two siblings. He also had land and some guns that he said my sons would receive at least one after his passing. His second wife passed away this year. According to the other siblings, he had nothing to give us or no legal documents stating such. i live in Greenville SC they live in Georgia. He lived the last 30 or so years of his life in Cumming Georgia. He did work as a teacher for the the State of SC back during the late 60's. How do I find out if he had land, money, left
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2 ANSWERS

Wills Attorney serving Alpharetta, GA
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Please accept my condolences on your loss. You can find out whether your biological father had a Will or not by contacting the probate court for the Georgia county where he had his principal residence (sounds like it was Forsyth) and asking whether there is a probate file for him. You'll need to give his name and date of death. You can also have someone search the deed records for any county where there may have been land to see if any property was in your father's name and, if so, what happened to it after his death. Unfortunately, however, if he had a Will and left everything to his wife, then the assets became hers and she was free to do whatever she liked with them at her own death (and if she didn't have a Will, the assets would go to her heirs, not to her late spouse's children). If he didn't have a Will, then one question is what happened with regard to his probate estate: if his surviving wife made a successful year's support claim, she may have received everything anyhow. Also, if he had no Will, then only his wife and his other children would legally have been entitled to any share of his probate estate. When you were adopted by your adoptive father, the legal relationship between you and your biological father was completed severed, and you would not be one of his heirs. If he had a life insurance policy that actually designated you as a beneficiary, the insurance company should have contacted you directly. If you didn't get any such contact, then you may not have been a beneficiary at all under the policy. There's not much you can do about that unless you can get someone to tell you the insurance company name and policy number. Best wishes to you.  
Answered on Aug 22nd, 2016 at 5:41 AM

This answer is being provided as general information and not as legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created by this answer.

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Probate Litigation Attorney serving Lawrenceville, GA at Robert W. Hughes & Associates, P.C.
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You woudl need to check with the Forsyth County Probate Court to determine whether your father had an estaet established after his death.  Usually, adoptoin terminates your right to inherit from him.  However, he is free to leave your name on a life insurance policy or bank account or land.  Iff the docuemtns merely refer to his chidlren as receiving the money, you would not normally be included in the definition of children.
Answered on Aug 20th, 2016 at 9:02 AM

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