Will Fulfillment Affidavit, but will not fulfilled

What is the name of your state? Texas

My dad passed in 1996. Before his death he told me that he had a will stating that he was leaving his personal property and real estate to all of his children upon his death. My dad's will was probated in August 2001. The will stated that his personal property and real estate property was to be divided among his 4 children from 2 marriages. I am one of the 3 cildren from the 1st marriage. He was married at the time of his death, with a child from that marriage. Application for Probate of will states that he owned pesonal property and real estate property of value. There was an Affidavit of Fulfillment signed by my half brother which stated that all terms of the will had been fulfilled. A month later, real estate property owned by my dad was sold. Three of the children did not recieve any portion of the proceeds from the sale. I feel that some fraud has been commited and I would like to know what I can do to find out and if there is any legal recourse. I have confronted him about what was done but he denies that we were named in the will and denies that there was any personal property of value or any real estate. He does not know that I have a copy of the probated will and relating documents. Statute of limitations may be near. Please help.

Why didn't you ask about this situation while the will was being probated?

Is your name and address listed in the probate file as one of the eligible heirs to be sent a copy of the will by the executor when probate was first begun?

Was the half brother the executor of the estate?

Are ALL of the children named in the will?

Is there financial information in the file that shows how the sale was handled and exactly who the monies were distributed to?

You need to take a copy of the will to a local probate attorney to have him review it to see if the language makes you eligible to receive a portion of the proceeds.

In one sense, there may be a statute of limitations on the probate, but you are lucky in another sense because there may not be a statute of limitations on the real estate aspect of the sale and so even if it turns out that you can't file a probate action about this it may be possible for you to file a small claims suit or other type of suit to get your share of the real estate proceeds.

DANDY DON IN OKLAHOMA ([email protected])

I was not notified that the Will was being probated. In fact my brother claimed that the Will was never filed before my dad's death. When he tried to sell the house, something on the real estate side prevented the sale. He came to us with documents for distribution of funds relating to the release of real estate property, requesting that we sign them. We refused until we could have them inspected by a lawyer. The lawyer that we retained requested a copy of the Will from him and his lawyer, but never recieved one. We never heard anything else from him so we figured that he had decided to just rent the house out. We later found out that the house was indeed sold somehow. Resaerch into the probate court documents revealed that he had signed an affidavit swearing that all aspects of the probated Will had been satisfied.

Our names are in the Will. We did not recieve a copy nor were we notified of any probate proceedings. All four of the children were named in the will. There is no financial information on the sale of the property other than the value of the real estate that was sold. The dollar amounts on the release documents that he asked us to sign matched the percentage of disbersment outlined in the Will.

Did you sign and return the release documents? It doesn't really matter, I'm just curious.

Look through the probate file and try to see if there is receipt there that would show whether an executor's bond was purchased or ask the probate court office clerk whether that county requires an executor's bond to be purchased.

An attorney can advise you how to proceed with this--you are owed some money by this executor for his mishandling of this estate.

DANDY DON IN OKLAHOMA ([email protected])

No, I never signed them. I'll have to find out if a bond is required. I think that I'm going to do is pay an atty to look over the documents and see if there was anything inproper done. I think that if my half brother didn't think that we were owed something, he would never had offered anything in the 1st place. Thanks.

Your mistake was in not signing and returning the release documents, but that still does not absolve him of his responsibility. Please mention to your attorney the fact that you did not sign and return the release documents so that he will be fully informed and know how to proceed.

DANDY DON IN OKLAHOMA ([email protected])