P
pat
Guest
My biological mother died when I was 7 yrs. old. There were 3 children. My father remarried 2 years later. My biological mother left her estate to my father and us children. A decree of distribution states that this property is to be divided by the following: 38 % to us children and 62% to my father. This decree included mineral rights. This property was mined for coal in the 1980s and we children received our percentages as did my father and our stepmother. My father died last year and we children were shocked to find that this property was obtaining coal royalty moneys for the last 4 years, and we knew nothing about it. A month after my father's death our stepmother gave us our royalty share and made it seem as though my father left us this money, when really we should have gotten it anyways because of this legal decree from my biological mother. Otherwise she got everything, and her 3 children already own the house that my father and her lived in for 31 years. (it was her house when my father married her). Now as it stands, when our stepmother passes away, her 3 children will automatically own more of my real mother's property than we do. Legally there is not too much we can do about this. However, we did hire a lawyer to force my father's will to be turned over and to find out more informaiton about these mining activities. We discovered that the coal company should have, but never did, get our signatures on the coal lease. The company has ignored this and still continued to send our stepmother royalty checks which she does distribute our % share, when she feels like it. We want to shut down the coal company but we were told that it would be costly to us in legal bills to do so. How can this be since it is the company's fault for not thoroughly checking out the true ownership of the property?I can not afford a long legal fight, but I feel so cheated. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to pursue this so as to not cost me an arm and a leg in the process????