What is the name of your state? California
My ex-husband passed away last summer and did not remarried since we were divorced 3 years ago. Our divorce was extremely amicable and we remained very good friends afterwards. We divorced because our life goals became very different, I wanted children and he didn't. My ex-husband told me that he was going to leave me as beneficiary on his life insurance and 401K because he wanted to be sure that myself and any kids I may have would always be taken care of, even if I met somebody else. When I left I left him everything (house, furnishings, stocks, etc.) as to not disrupt his life as much as possible. So now that he has passed, after giving it very much thought, I fulfilled his wishes and filed claims on the money and rolled it into my retirement as he had requested of me previously. He has only one child (adult) which was very, very estranged and has been pretty much all of her life. The only contact he had from her was when she wanted money and he quit doing that while we were still together. I have been told by many people that I have the legal right to take the money as I was the sole beneficiary. I am now being told by the estate administrator (decedent's brother), who is very happy that I took the money, that the heir will most likely try and get the money from me. So my question is this, do the wishes of the decedent have more legal rights than that of an estranged heir? Did I mention that there is no will?
My ex-husband passed away last summer and did not remarried since we were divorced 3 years ago. Our divorce was extremely amicable and we remained very good friends afterwards. We divorced because our life goals became very different, I wanted children and he didn't. My ex-husband told me that he was going to leave me as beneficiary on his life insurance and 401K because he wanted to be sure that myself and any kids I may have would always be taken care of, even if I met somebody else. When I left I left him everything (house, furnishings, stocks, etc.) as to not disrupt his life as much as possible. So now that he has passed, after giving it very much thought, I fulfilled his wishes and filed claims on the money and rolled it into my retirement as he had requested of me previously. He has only one child (adult) which was very, very estranged and has been pretty much all of her life. The only contact he had from her was when she wanted money and he quit doing that while we were still together. I have been told by many people that I have the legal right to take the money as I was the sole beneficiary. I am now being told by the estate administrator (decedent's brother), who is very happy that I took the money, that the heir will most likely try and get the money from me. So my question is this, do the wishes of the decedent have more legal rights than that of an estranged heir? Did I mention that there is no will?