I reside in Alabama.
Alright here's the deal, my father passed away and left little over $125,000 ($67,500 apiece) for my brother and I under his life insurance. The way my father had it set up was so that it was inaccessible by anyone until my brother and I reached age 19. My brother is age 18 (he will be 19 on January 11, 2011), and I am 16 (I will be 19 on July 14, 2012). The thing is my brother wrecked our vehicle and we had no way to go and we had to contact our car insurance and report it, etc etc. We received roughly $8,000 to get a new vehicle (based off of the current value of the totaled vehicle). My mother contacted a lawyer since my brother and I have turned 16 and we can drive and get part time jobs and we are going to school. Well my mother was charged roughly $1,900 so that she could pointed conservator of my brother and I, and so that we could get the money transferred from MetLife into a local bank that would allow us to get some money in order to get a vehicle (with court order). We were appointed a Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) of which we paid $150 apiece ($300) in order to be our GAL. We had a court date and we went and talked to the Probate Judge. The Judge told us that he would order my brother and I be able to spend $10,000 apiece to get a reasonable vehicle, and that he would call us when we could go and get the vehicle. Come to find out 2-3 months later WE had to call the MetLife company and get them to transfer the money to the bank and then let the judge know, so we already had to find out ourselves. Our attorney charged us for each individual call that we made asking about our money, we were only asking because we had NO IDEA that we were supposed to do everything, NO ONE TOLD US ANYTHING AND THEY KNEW. They told us that we didn't have to worry about anything to get the money where it needs to be. We ended up owing roughly $900 for just calling and finding out useless information, I assume, they should have already told us that very day! ALSO! We would have never known that we owed the money in the first place if we didn't 'accidentally' see it while talking to the Judge a second time. The second time we went up to talk to the judge he told us that, "I'm only going to allow one vehicle to be purchased under the older boy's name," and that was alright I would suppose, but here around 2-3 weeks later we are informed that only $8,000 would be allowed to be spent on a vehicle. Both times he said in front of our attorney and our GAL that he ordered BOTH petitions.
Now I don't know anything dealing with law, but I do think that something conniving and fishy is going on, can anyone give me some advice? These people keep throwing us in loops and taking more and more money out of what my brother and I were given that we planned to go to college on. Everyone is getting our money but us... We have no way to go to school, and come home, we're borderline attendance failure because of it, and we NEED it, and I believe they know we ABSOLUTELY NEED IT, so they KNOW they can get away with throwing us for loops...
Help me please?
Alright here's the deal, my father passed away and left little over $125,000 ($67,500 apiece) for my brother and I under his life insurance. The way my father had it set up was so that it was inaccessible by anyone until my brother and I reached age 19. My brother is age 18 (he will be 19 on January 11, 2011), and I am 16 (I will be 19 on July 14, 2012). The thing is my brother wrecked our vehicle and we had no way to go and we had to contact our car insurance and report it, etc etc. We received roughly $8,000 to get a new vehicle (based off of the current value of the totaled vehicle). My mother contacted a lawyer since my brother and I have turned 16 and we can drive and get part time jobs and we are going to school. Well my mother was charged roughly $1,900 so that she could pointed conservator of my brother and I, and so that we could get the money transferred from MetLife into a local bank that would allow us to get some money in order to get a vehicle (with court order). We were appointed a Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) of which we paid $150 apiece ($300) in order to be our GAL. We had a court date and we went and talked to the Probate Judge. The Judge told us that he would order my brother and I be able to spend $10,000 apiece to get a reasonable vehicle, and that he would call us when we could go and get the vehicle. Come to find out 2-3 months later WE had to call the MetLife company and get them to transfer the money to the bank and then let the judge know, so we already had to find out ourselves. Our attorney charged us for each individual call that we made asking about our money, we were only asking because we had NO IDEA that we were supposed to do everything, NO ONE TOLD US ANYTHING AND THEY KNEW. They told us that we didn't have to worry about anything to get the money where it needs to be. We ended up owing roughly $900 for just calling and finding out useless information, I assume, they should have already told us that very day! ALSO! We would have never known that we owed the money in the first place if we didn't 'accidentally' see it while talking to the Judge a second time. The second time we went up to talk to the judge he told us that, "I'm only going to allow one vehicle to be purchased under the older boy's name," and that was alright I would suppose, but here around 2-3 weeks later we are informed that only $8,000 would be allowed to be spent on a vehicle. Both times he said in front of our attorney and our GAL that he ordered BOTH petitions.
Now I don't know anything dealing with law, but I do think that something conniving and fishy is going on, can anyone give me some advice? These people keep throwing us in loops and taking more and more money out of what my brother and I were given that we planned to go to college on. Everyone is getting our money but us... We have no way to go to school, and come home, we're borderline attendance failure because of it, and we NEED it, and I believe they know we ABSOLUTELY NEED IT, so they KNOW they can get away with throwing us for loops...
Help me please?