help with will

The transfer of the property into her name being done after she had Power of Attorney indicates that it had to have been posted with the court prior to the transfer. I've known people to just carry the notarized document around to do the required business.

I've also known of a son who stole every cent his living but senile mother had available to pay for his new blond wife's liposuction and boob job. I'm sure that is not what happened here... but it does sound like there USED to be a will and probably still could be...

Figure out who her lawyer was for the will and make further inquiries as to whether he kept a copy.

It could also be something the governmental agency that pays for indigent services would be interested in- considering that there used to be a five year time frame where they would demand possession of the asset or its value before they would pay the thousands of dollars in nursing home fees. A person has to be literally down to the nubs to get medicaid to pay for the nursing home. I believe it has been changed to three years, but the date of her application to the nursing home using medicaid status is the controlling date.

I'm sure you can put these dates together in a timeline and determine for yourself and your other relatives whether this other relative has embezzled from the estate using her power of attorney or if she was the unpublished recipient from some will. In any event, the fact that she did not go through the court says that there may not have been any assets when the woman died... and the government makes folks jump through hoops to prove it... back to some 3 or 5 years.

That doesn't mean she was in the right when she took possession of the property and the personal assets. It just means she did it with the power of attorney when the woman was not able to stop her.... do you not get that your attendance to your aging relative might have made this impossible? It is amazing that so many concerned relatives come calling for their share not knowing what was available, but holding on to a fiction that there was a million dollars? Read on... it is indeed possible.

I seldom had time in my busy life to visit my dad's sister who lived to be 95 in Nashville. They visited us and I gave dinner parties for local cousins when they came. I did visit them when she was about 90 and I helped them put in a new light fixture over their dining room table and sent them a new set of ironstone dishes for Christmas to replace the funky country ones she loved that were mostly shattered from fragile old hands doing the dishes. I was very surprised when I received a check from her for the lamp... but shocked indeed to realize that my 2nd grade teacher aunt and her accountant husband had amassed nearly $2M that he split between us 6 cousins and his 4 nephews.

One of my cousins had spent an inordinate amount of time with her in her late 80s and according to my uncle, my aunt's will left her $1.2M to that cousin and her brother. But my uncle outlived her by a year and he wanted my mother to know that he appreciated our family over the years and that since he received it first, he was redistributing it to us. Lovely. Who Knew??? Must have been a shock to cousin Ann though. She is the kind of person who at 65 still wanted to know why we didn't write thank you notes to her for these Christmas felt skirts with poodle cutouts pasted on them. I thanked her mother... I had no idea she put them together. I guess her mother felt that since she bought the pattern and felt that it was correct to thank her, so she never told her daughter she received a note. But that somehow expanded in her mind to the point that she told her brother that none of us cared about him or her... Not at all the truth. But her brother's wife took that to heart and was very hurt... by US??? No. By a sister who wanted to cut friendly cousins out of his life because they had been unkind to HER???? NADA. Never. But I'm sure she was just doing her best to do payback with the will. I wonder if she knows we got just as much as she did????

Im back, victoria can keep her secret because I prefer #7 or more. I want to get all the info I can and learn all I can about the law before contacting my sister. I plan to call on monday to see if the court will tell me if she had power of attorney. I think she used that to remove all the assets from the estate. There is one niece that lives in the same town as my sister and is siding up with her. She claims she went to the court house with my sister and attorney to probate the will. Well someone is lieing because the probate court has no record of that. And would you believe my niece and sister both say they cant remember the attorneys name, what a joke, they better start remembering some things soon. Thanks to this web site and your help I am building up quite a folder of legal info .

I dont know for sure if she had power of attorney but plan to check on that monday. Will the court still have the record even though the person has died and the power of attorney has ended?

Yes, power of attorney documents are not legal unless notarized and on file at the courthouse.

If the furnishings were sold by auction, the auctioneer should have a record of the items sold. Make tracks for the auctioneer's office to get a copy of those records. I think they might come in handy when it comes to determining the full value of the estate. The other way is to subpoena her bank records for estate transactions... but that will have to wait on the court order... and the auctioneer might feel his records are private too. Can't hurt to ask though. He has to keep those until the year end for taxes though.

Keep on moving but you should probably make it pretty fast now that you have more knowledge. Good luck.

I apologize for making so many posts but I dont want to make a fool of myself by jumping into something without knowing the law.

Good idea and that had crossed my mind already. I have not idea how to find the auctioneer but will start by checking the yellow pages for the area.

My husband's father passed away July 2007 and none of the money has been handed out to the siblings except for one. His sister,who is the executrix, is now staying in the estate and not paying rent to the court. She had a rental house and is saying that she needs to watch the house so no one bothers it. It is in the country and another sister lives right next door and there is another sister who lives very close by. So there were plently of people to watch the house and property until the estate was sold. The sister who is the executrix is still living there and has not even tried to sell the estate. This is happening in indiana. If anyone can give me some insight, that would greatly be appreciated.

Thanks,
Judy

Yea thats what I thought. I posted on TheLaw.com and someone replied saying I should open probate myself . I replied asking how I could do that without a will and he replied I need to stop posting and do what he said. Can you believe that. Go there look under family wills and estates, help with will.

What is your question? Has the estate been opened? Has it been through probate yet?