• FreeAdvice has a new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, effective May 25, 2018.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our Terms of Service and use of cookies.

How can I find out what happened to my mother's estate?

Accident - Bankruptcy - Criminal Law / DUI - Business - Consumer - Employment - Family - Immigration - Real Estate - Tax - Traffic - Wills   Please click a topic or scroll down for more.

P

probate_qst

Guest
What is the name of your state?This question pertains to New York State.

My mother wrote a will naming me as executor in 1975. It was prepared by an attorney and bears the signature of 3 witnesses. The basic elements of the Will are that my mother gave me her interest in a house which she bought mutually with my sister (she paid the entire down payment) and that everything else was to be shared equally between my sister and me.

In 1999 title to the house passed from joint tenancy between my mother and sister, to my sister singly, followed by yet another title change from my sister to her and her 2 daughters, all as joint tenants.

My mother died 2 years ago, in 2002, which I only found out about recently. Unfortunately there was no contact with anyone in my family for many years. Recently I came across my mother’s Will in my filing cabinet while I was rearranging my files, which caused me to think about everything that had happened.

I checked with the Surrogate’s Court in the county in which my mother died and it appears that there was no probate. Likely joint banking accounts were set up, particularly as my mother probably moved in with my sister toward the end of her life (given where the death took place.)

In New York state law, a joint banking account is presumed to be “with rights of survivorship” (so I am told) in contrast to another designation as a convenience account, which is without rights of survivorship.

I don’t know what actually happened to my mother’s estate. Even more I do not know if my mother wrote another Will. In any event probate was not filed and I am told I can file probate now since I have a valid will.

Does anyone have advice as to how I can proceed? I am mostly interested in finding out the facts as to what, if any, estate there is and am wondering if having a lawyer is the only realistic option, or if there are other approaches I can take.

Simply asking my sister is not a possibility, as she is always in a combative mood.
 


Dandy Don

Senior Member
Let me guess why sister is in such a combative mood--she doesn't want you to find out how much she illegally robbed you (and possibly others) of their fair share of this estate.

She probably handled most of the assets of any major value, so you are going to be at somewhat of a disadvantage. It would help your cause if you had access to her personal papers in her home, but sis got there first, didn't she?

Her mistake was in not filing to become administrator/executor of the estate, which would have given her legal authority to claim any and all assets. This loophole is good news for you, because now YOU (or a probate attorney you may want to hire) can file to become administrator and get whatever is left of the estate probated. However, before you begin probate you need to have some idea of what assets are left and what the estate value is, but if there is anything at all left (what about your mother's pension accounts, stocks, etc.)--as soon as you find out that there is anything that needs to be probated, you need to beat sister to the county courthouse probate court to file to become administrator.

Soon after filing you will receive letters testamentary giving you authority to claim assets. The next step will be for you to order copies of your mother's state and federal income tax forms (for the year that she died and for the year preceding her death)--the administrator/executor is the only person who can order such information--which will provide valuable clues as to her sources of income.

At some point you may want to consider hiring a private investigator for a few hundred dollars to do a financial background check on your mother, which would at least uncover where she did her banking and possibly other assets or other debts. Sis probably already got ahold of the bank accounts if she was named as joint account co-owner or beneficiary, but as a formality you need to still check with the bank to verify how the account was handled. If she was not named as co-owner or beneficiary, then only the estate was entitled to this money and she will have to repay the estate for any monies that she took that she was not entitled to.

It's kind of difficult to find a track record of exactly what she did unless you want to talk to a forensic accountant or auditor and that might be expensive. You may eventually have to file a civil suit against her to get her to reveal how she handled this estate or sue her for theft from an estate, and she may have to reveal her personal bank account activity to see if estate assets were put in there erroneously.

Your probate attorney will need to look at whose names were on the joint tenancy and whether the home still needs to go through probate now to reflect ownership by any and all heirs or whether it goes only to the joint tenants.

You will also need to consult with a local probate attorney to get your questions answered about the probate process and any special concerns you have, so even if you don't hire one to be executor you can still pay for counsel/advice which will be very helpful.

If you don't find any assets, then there is no need to get the will probated except for the purpose of your getting the letters testamentary so you can order the tax returns, and then after you get the information, cancel the probate. Be persistent and you will eventually find out the information you need, and sister is going to have to come clean/explain/account for what she did.

DANDY DON IN OKLAHOMA ([email protected])
 

nextwife

Senior Member
probate_qst said:
In 1999 title to the house passed from joint tenancy between my mother and sister, to my sister singly, followed by yet another title change from my sister to her and her 2 daughters, all as joint tenants.

My mother died 2 years ago, in 2002, which I only found out about recently. Unfortunately there was no contact with anyone in my family for many years.

Dandy Don said:
Let me guess why sister is in such a combative mood--she doesn't want you to find out how much she illegally robbed you (and possibly others) of their fair share of this estate.
I have another take on this. Our poster states she had not remained in touch with the family. She had not even known mom had passed away. It is entirely possible Mom retitled many assets and changed her assets so they would be held by sis or sis was beneficiary, and mom's property passed without probate. After all, evidentally Mom chose to convey full title to sis 3 years BEFORE her death, perhaps to insure that sis would not need to share the property (Poster, you can easily obtain a copy of the deed conveying out Mom's interst in the property to see if it is she that signed it)? Might Mom may have been a tad perturbed that her daughter had nothing to do with her all these years?
 
Last edited:
P

probate_qst

Guest
To both Dandy Don & Nextwife: thank you for taking the time to reply.

Nextwife, your observations are quite correct, and so perhaps some context is necessary.

My mother and sister were joint tenants in a house for which my mother paid the entire downpayment. This took place after my father died in 1974, and the house was bought within the next year. My mother, sister, and my sister’s 2 daughters lived in the house. About a year later, somewhere around 1975, my sister asked (told) my mother to leave, presumably because my mother tried to dictate how my sister should live her life. For this reason my mother made out a Will in which she specified that her interest in the house was to pass to me and the rest of the assets were to be shared equally. My mother gave me her Will, and stated that she was doing that because of my sister’s treatment of her, and because she felt that I would make sure that everything would be attended to properly and that the 2 children would be taken care of fairly. That was a good assumption then and it would be a good assumption now, if things were different.

Throughout her life, my mother tried to use financial incentives as a tool to control the behavior and attitudes of my sister and me. In 1985, for example, during a visit to my mother, she insisted that I hold a certain view. I refused and then on the last day of my visit informed me that she either had or was going to name my sister as the executrix of her Will. She then told me that all I was interested in was “waiting for me to die.” I wasn’t thinking such thoughts at all, and in fact had never expressed any interest in any possible future inheritance. I regarded this behavior as yet another example - in a very long list - of an attempt to “buy” attention and love. It didn’t work that way then, nor has it ever worked that way for me. This was the last straw. For another example of the manipulative nature of the environment, I would mention an earlier example wherein following high school I was not able to attend the school of my choice ( a state university) due the the refusal – primarily of my mother – to cosign a student loan (out of a stated fear that I would not repay the loan and leave them holding the debt.) I thereupon worked for a year, saved every penny (not dime, penny,) and was able to attend the following year. After all this time, my mother then insisted upon cosigning the very same loan she had a year earlier refused to sign. Bear in mind I did not ask her to, nor was I particularly crazy about letting her do so. Instead I had decided to get my foot in the door in school, drop out to work some more, and continue in this fashion. And that is what happened.

There is no love lost on anyone’s part, and most certainly no one has remained unscathed nor unharmed.

The choice to sever contact is not an easy one. Others are entitled to make their choices, and one can make all sorts of psychological and ethical arguments one way or the other. I suspect I visited all possible views and decided that there was too much harm for me to maintain this contact. That was true for my mother. I did occassional call my sister, but here too a contant state of nastiness wore thin and became ennervating. The last conversation I had with my sister was in 1988, at which time my sister told me that one of her daughters graduated 3rd in her high school class, and that she wanted to go to a presitgious college. At that time I was doing fairly well financially and in fact offered to given my sister $10,000 dollars for my niece so that she could get her foot in the door of the college she wanted to attend. I was also prepared to pay more, but perhaps not quite as much on a yearly basis. My sister’s comment was that her daughter should (it was a demand) go to a local junior college so that she could “prove that her accomplishment was not a fluke.” She also wanted to know “what is up your sleeve?” I exploded upon hearing this as it was like reliving some of the same psychological dynamics I had experienced. So from a psychological point of view it is interesting how behaviors are passed down and how almost unconsciously we adopt attitudes and behaviors which are not entirely consciously understood. It is also interesting how deeply we are affected by events which take place even decades earlier.

Pretty sick, huh? For all of us.

I found out about my mother’s death as a result of finding her Will in my filing cabinet. This prompted me to make an inquiry, as a result of which I found out what had happened. I then also started thinking about the whole history of the relationships and agonised over whether to go any further. There is, of course, an ethical question. Here I removed myself entirely from the family and then – one can say – came prancing back after the death, hand outstretched in search of money. Perhaps this is true. But it is also true that I have a 6 ½ year old son – despite my own age – and I would surely like him to be able to go to whatever school he wanted to, if he was accepted and interested. My spouse and I would sacrifice nearly everything to allow this to happen, and my conclusion is that if there were funds available through my mother’s estate to help this then it would be just.

Now as to the title to the house changing hands before my mother’s death, of course I do not know why. But, I would entertain the possibility that that was a condition my sister laid down for my mother to move back in with my sister near the end of her life. Of course, by then my mother was 91 years old, so I simply do not know what her mental state was either. Of course, speculation is fine, but it means nothing in the end; only facts matter in these situations.

To Dandy Don, your advice is sage, and in fact I have already been on the phone with 2 probate attorneys. One of them is particularly helpful and will be able to find out some information through some friends of hers in the local court. Likely everything is gone, but people make mistakes. For example if there were joint banking accounts – I presume there were – then in New York such an account is presumed “with right of survivorship” unless explicitly designated as a “convenience account.” I do not know the facts and want to find them out. Your idea to get ahold of the tax returns is excellent, and looking at the actual deed, as suggested by Nextwife, is excellent as well. I will also invest in investigative services to find out more of the financial picture.

As Tolstoy says in the opening sentence in Anna Karenina, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
 
Last edited:

Find the Right Lawyer for Your Legal Issue!

Fast, Free, and Confidential
data-ad-format="auto">
Top