Need advice concerning mishandled will and estate

This is rather long but need to know if our situation is one we just have to live with or if there is something we can do about it.

This all started about three or four years ago when my wife and mother-in-law started caring for a family member after the person with the power of attorney was removed due to abuse and inappropriate handling of finances. Her husband was in a facility due to advanced Alzheimer's disease and she was not capable of fully caring for herself. So, up until she went to a care facility in the summer of 2007, my wife and mother-in-law cared for her.

During that time, she decided to make my wife full heir to her estate and went to the family attorney to have her will changed to that effect. Everything was in her name and the attorney stated that everything was in order.

When she moved to the care facility, she decided that her condo needed to be sold and the process was started for doing so. A snag was hit when the title company said that since she was married, they needed a document from the husband to sell the property. The power of attorney she had from the husband could not be found (turned out it was in with a box of papers the person who previously had power of attorney had sent but the attorney never bothered looking at what the box contained. The accountant who the attorney sent the box to never bothered looking either).

The first idea we came up with was to just have her sign the condo over to us since it would have came to us anyway after her death. We could then sell it and put it in a trust to pay her bills until she dies where what remained would come to us. The attorney told us that would not be a good idea. His idea and what he went on to do was to visit the husband (in a home with advanced Alzheimer's, thinking it was 30 or 40 years earlier than it was, and documented that he wasn't capable of handling his affairs) and have him sign the document which he filed with the county.

The condo was sold but for $25,000 less than it would have been had the attorney looked and found the power of attorney in that box. Wasn't at all comfortable with the fact that he had done what he did with having the husband sign the paper and all. But that was out of the way at least.

Well, she died last year and the probate process started. Not long into it, the attorney called my wife to inform her that half of the estate would be going to the husband and the remainder would be split equally between the husband and my wife. My wife argued that the will was supposed to have been set so that she was the sole heir and that he had assured them that was done. He informed her that he, being a family lawyer and not usually handling estate issues, didn't know about a law that gave the husband the right to the bulk of the estate even though he wasn't named in the will. So, out of an estate of $135,000 or so, my wife received about $35,000. The husband, who died shortly after probate was over, died and his will gave the funds to the niece who was the person who had the power of attorney taken from her.

What I'm asking is this. Is what the attorney did with having the husband sign that document and then submit it to the country saying he was of sound mind and all legal? Also, if the attorney was someone who didn't handle more complex estate arrangements, should he have conferred with one who did? The attorney was supposed to arrange the estate to our family member's wishes and he failed to do so from what I see.

My wife is wanting to know where she stands on things. Does she just have to put up with what happened or is there some remedy she can pursue. I've told her to file against the attorney but she seems to think that is something she can not do. Any advice would be helpful. This took place in Ohio.

She was not the client. She cannot personally file against the lawyer for handling business that didn't give her as much as she wanted. A case could be made to say that he had an invalid signature since he was clearly in the home for Alzheimers and as such was incompetent, but it is HER estate that would collect the difference and apparently much (2/3) of what was recovered would go to the niece. What she would get is purely guesswork and any suit would not hold up in court for a specified amount without some really tall tales by real estate brokers. This is a down market and has been for quite some time.

I'd tell your wife to be happy with what she got. It is free money. Unless she really wants to ensure the niece gets another batch of the estate at her legal expense, LET IT GO..

During 2004 my mother was dying of breast cancer and my father who was 93 was in a retirement home. My father died first, and no one knew of a will, so all of his property went (tenants in common) to my mother upon his death.

My mother died in December 2004. She was taking percocet for the pain in the treatment of her cancer. She was hallucinating and delusional. She believed the women in the bed next to her was molesting her. I knew this and knew that her mind was gone because she thought I was another lady, and did not ever recognize me any time that I visited her. (I went to see her about 25 times during her stay in the nursing home.)

While in the nursing home in a state of dementia, my mother signed a "will" only five days before her death giving her entire estate to my brother, Mark. She never even mentioned me or my daughter in the will. I don't know if she believed that I was dead, or what coercion my brother used to persuade her to sign the document, but the fact that she did not even name me in her "will" (not even to give me the property that I did own that was stored in her house) is very strange.

Under Pennsylvania law a person has one year to file exceptions with the Register of Wills.

I did not receive the notification from my brother's attorney that a will had been filed. Since I am a person of interest being the daughter, I had a right to know that a will had been filed. By the time I discovered this, it was too late to file any answer.

Therefore, the will giving the estate of my mother to my brother was accepted by the Register of Wills in Pennsylvania.

From January 2005 when the will was filed until February 2009 my brother did not convey the property which he benefited from by living in the home of my mother to his name as owner of the estate willed to him by my mother.

When he died in 2009 my daughter found a unnotarized, unwitnessed, handwritten note where he leaves the ESTATE OF LAYNE AND RUTH WHITMAN, our parents, to my daughter as beneficiary of their estate.

Did my brother have the legal right to will my parents' estate to my daughter?