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inheritance

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redjar61

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Missouri
My mother died 3/8/08. Her will named her 4 daughters as heirs. Unfortunately Mom died with no one else on the title of her house. We have just now sold her house. Our sister died 4/9/09, leaving the 3 of us girls. The 3 of us do not want to give our niece our sister's share of the money due to the fact that Niece had borrowed that amount plus from Mom while she was alive.
The will states that PR can divide, sell, mortgage as she sees fit. Can we omit niece from inheritance? If not, can we get a letter signed by her relinquishing rights to inheritance? I know this sounds greedy and selfish, but my niece was a taker and was always "borrowing" money from mom. She never paid back a dime. The 3 remaining daughters agree on this point and are willing to sign an affidavit stating such.What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?
 


tranquility

Senior Member
If she is your sister's rightful heir, the money was hers the moment her mom died. Not distributing it to her would be:

The tort of conversion by all of you, the fiduciary breach of the PR subject to treble damages for maliciousness, the crime of theft by the person who comits the act and the crime of conspiracy from all of you talking about it. I could think of some more if I went to Missouri statutes.

If you could get neice to "disclaim" (relinquishing her rights to inheritance), the money would go back into her mother's estate, not your mother's estate. This means that mom's wishes would be put back into play and if there was no other legal heir in the will/trust/intestate succession rules, it would escheat to the state.
 

anteater

Senior Member
I will just add:

If there were actual contemporaneous evidence of loans to the niece, then the administrator of your mother's estate should have pursued repayment from the niece. After the fact affidavits from interested parties won't carry much weight.
 

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