How to obtain estate funds?

What is the name of your state? Illinois and Indiana
Hello, this is a complicated situation.

My father died 16 June 2003. This was his second marriage; mother died in 1990. All property was held jointly during his first marriage.

Second wife has multiple mental disorders; denies there is a will (I know for a fact there is one, but no one has a copy of will), purchased a home in IN by using a POA for my father's paidup home in IL with a line of credit, so now the home in IL is encumbered. The home in IL, if in proper condition, should sell for $300K+. The home is filled with trash, rotting food, etc. The second wife has abandoned the property for Indiana, which is held in my father's name alone. I have pulled deeds on all of the property that I can find, but I have reason to believe that there is a great deal of concealment of valuable property going on.

We are moving to have the 2nd wife removed as executor, as she has failed to close on the home in IL X2 occasions. She has evaded the process server X 6.

My brother is unwilling to assume duties as executor of the estate as he feels that he will be held financially liable for the proper insurance on the house in IL, as we do not know if the home insurance is paid up. We have an emergency hearing on 14 June 2004 to allow the children into the IL home as we have not been allowed into this home.

My question is: How do we obtain estate funds, and if no insurance is on the home in IL, are we responsible for paying the premiums? The house in IL is in dire disrepair, in need of repair, infested with rodents/insects/who knows what else. My father had done nothing to repair/maintain the home in the 14 years since my mother passed. He had alcoholism, as well as complications of alcoholism such as dementia, and lung CA when he died.

Our intention is to abide by the letter of the law, and we do have representation in IL, not IN, as we were assuming that we would be able to use an ancillary estate to transfer the IN property to the 2nd wife, as she decided that she wanted that house.

Thank you for your interest and advice in this matter. I greatly appreciate it.

The FIRST question you need to be asking is based on the following from your post:

Second wife...purchased a home in IN by using a POA for my father's paidup home in IL with a line of credit

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Did she do this before or after pops died?

BelizeBreeze said:

The FIRST question you need to be asking is based on the following from your post:



Did she do this before or after pops died?

Click to expand...

Before. April of 2003, when he was hospitalized and whacked on Ativan (I'm an RN, I know when someone is snowed. I've done it!)

Had a notary come to the room to watch him sign the document, notarize it, never questioned his mental capacity.

For all I know he thought he was signing up for a trip to Disneyland.

What other assets does your father have besides the house? Does he own stock or bank accounts and do you know where he does his banking? You need to see how his bank accounts are set up--whether he named his wife as joint co-owner or account beneficiary. If wife is joint co-owner, then she gets the money without going through probate. If she is not, then the estate is responsible for claiming the money.

You need to be contacting the insurance company to find out how much the premiums are and then deciding if you want to continue paying them so that a lapse does not occur that causes the policy to be cancelled. Yes, the estate is liable for paying this but if it doesn't have the money to do so then someone else needs to step up depending on how important you think it is to have this insurance or not.

Other issues

Well, Wife #2 was on a joint checking account, but my mother's life insurance, his life insurance, etc, went to the estate. She has done some very uncool things with money -- like setting up a line of credit to buy a house. Thank god that was in his name only -- the estate owns it in IN and now we have to open the estate up in IN too, have her evicted, hold her financially responsible for all the damage inflicted on the primary residence.

We're also pretty sure she's concealing the will written before my mother died in 1990; my father claimed to have had it changed to leave everything to his three children -- pretty good reason to conceal a will.

If we can prove her mental incapacity can we get rid of her altogether? My father was diagnosed with some alcohol-abuse-related dementia several years ago, before lots of this became an issue. He was obviously not right mentally (Weirneke's encephalopathy, multi-infarct dementia) and these are documented diagnoses. i know that we'll have to subpeona the doc to get his records, but I don't really care; she's worth the trouble.

Thanks for the input. If anyone has any interesting ideas pls PM me or post. We're desperate.

Illinois and Indiana:

Does anyone have any ideas how I can get access to this person to serve her for paying bills she was responsible for, etc while we clean out the IL house?

The house in IN is titled in my father's name only; we think she's living there. Any ideas?