Interesting Case

What is the name of your state? ks

This should give you all some fun . OK, my great uncle died in 2005. No will. My father was appointed to handle it and apparently was to receive everything since neither me nor my sister were ever even notified. My father hired an attorney. He began the process of probate. The "estate" opened a checking account. So it began. My father passed away 2 weeks ago. Myself and his widow(seperated) are now taking over the estate . Going through papers we have found that my father has financially raped the uncles estate. There are carbons of checks literally every other day made out to CASH for a total of thousands of dollars over the past 2 years. My father was shopping at dept. stores, pawn shops, antique stores all with the uncles money. Meanwhile he was living in one of the uncles house under the premise of fixing it up for sale. No improvements have been made.No bills have been paid. His stocks and bonds have been accessed and dwindled from over 200,000 to about 12 dollars as best I can scrounge from the paperwork .Original listed value in the court documents for stock was only 60,000.The houses have been grossly under appraised.I think they just made a number up. None of his houses have been improved upon for sale and it is almost 3 years later and this is still going nowhere but to the poor house. I have receipt after receipt for personal items purchased by my father with estate money. No question they are personal either. I am sure my uncle has no use for a new pair of boots 2 years after he is buried much less collectable coins and guns. Only a small example of the misuse of money. So, now my questions are, what is the clueless attorneys role in this gross mismanagement? Trust me he is clueless , he is looking to me to tell him how much money is left in the estate acct. to pay the tax bills,and the thousands of dollars racked up in utilities. Should we get a new attorney or try and work with this one? Are the two estates, my uncles and my fathers, now one as the attorney has told us? My father was a con artist swindler who never worked a day in his life and would have no estate were it not for my uncles money. The advice I have gotten from other attorneys is only surface as this particular attorney working my uncles estate has an "excellent reputation" noone really wants to help me. HELP! Thank youWhat is the name of your state?

Generally, an estate attorney's involvement in the administration of an estate is only as much as the personal representative desires. After all, the personal representative is the attorney's client. Some PR's hand over everything to the estate attorney; some only engage the attorney on legal questions.

When you say that you and your mother are "taking over the estate." I assume that you mean that you have recieved the court's authorization to be great uncle's succeessor PR's?

Unless you want to pay a bundle of money to an attorney to do it, the first step would be to review everything concerning the estate. Construct an income & expense statement and a current balance sheet. Then, you would be in a position for a sitdwon with an attorney. When you have that done, the attorney may not seem so "clueless." You will have to judge for yourselves whether you want to retain the current attorney or engage a new one.

If your father was indeed the sole heir of great uncle's estate, the attorney may have meant that effectively the two estates were one. I doubt that he was suggesting that great uncle's estate does not need to be wrapped up and legally closed. Unless there are other potential heirs or legitimate creditors are in danger of being stiffed, your father's freespending ways could be looked at as nothing more than making partial distributons from the estate during probate. An unorthodox way of doing so for sure, but, if all the conditions I just mentioned are the case, then I would say that there is no harm done.

I'll truncate this by assuming that great uncle did not have a surviving spouse. What the KS intestate succession statutes say is:

2. Heirs other than surviving spouse. Any part of the intestate estate not passing to the surviving spouse as indicated above, or the entire intestate estate if there is no surviving spouse, passes as follows to:

Decedent's children, with the issue of a deceased child splitting the deceased child's share.

Decedent's parent or parents equally.

Heirs of decedent's parents, as if each parent had an equal share and died intestate. If there are no surviving heirs of one parent, everything goes to the heirs of the other parent.

Copyright 2002 - 2008, CCH Incorporated, a Wolters Kluwer business. All Rights Reserved

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What would the houses be worth if sold today?

Is there any indication that an executor's bond was purchased for this estate, which (if one was purchased) could protect the financial interest of the beneficiaries from theft/misappropriation?

Whose name appears on the letters testamentary issued by the court; in other words, who is the official personal representative--your father, or the hired attorney?

If you have not done so, go to the county courthouse probate court to look at all official documents on this probate case. How many court hearings were held and how was he able to get away with making withdrawals from the account for so long without having to report to the court any type of ongoing progress with handling the estate?

Is the hired attorney willing to continue advising on these estates or is he relucant to continue further?

My father is the PR named by the court. I have all documents to date filed and the only financial records are ones that are grossly underestimated, on my fathers word I assume. The amount the estate was worth on the court documents is about 1/3 total what was written in checks on the account in the first year of probate. I assume my father found more stocks and bonds in the home as he went along and simply did not disclose that information. He has withdrawn enough money from one stock account alone that is worth what the entire estate was worth on paper. The houses are worth plenty. They are in affluent areas but just a bit neglected. No bond was used. I am assuming knowing my father that once he had the paper in hand to access funds much was done behind the attorneys back. But I also am assuming that there would be some checking and holding accountable by the attorney.

Unless there are other potential heirs or legitimate creditors are in danger of being stiffed, your father's freespending ways could be looked at as nothing more than making partial distributons from the estate during probate. An unorthodox way of doing so for sure, but, if all the conditions I just mentioned are the case, then I would say that there is no harm done.

We need an answer to anteater's thoughtful comment. If OP's father is the sole heir, and all creditors have been paid and/or all there are remaining assets to pay any remaining debts, there is no issue. Father was free to spend his inheritance, and was entitled to take partial distirbutions. Attorney had no responsibility to prevent the sole heir from spending the money unless there was an unpaid creditor or heir.

That's probably OP you didn't get any notice - not entitled to any unless an heir.

OP, what is it that you are concerned about? Are there unpaid debts? Or did Dad just drain an estate you'd hoped to inherit?

But the father has taken more than just "partial" distributions and thus has robbed OP of a potential inheritance. He should have been smart enough to at least pay the estate taxes and debts before he got completely greedy.

OP should be asking the father if he gave POA to the wife.

No POA to the wife and he had no will either. NO I am not angry that he spent money I wanted to inherit. When my grandparents passed and left no wills he spent millions of there money in a mere 5 years. We never even asked if there was a will and asked for no posessions even though we were very close and new for a fact that he had left my children specifically marked collections of stamps to put them thru college. everyone knew that. My father is not a man I wanted to be associated with in any way.It was not worth the hassle for me or my family. I am only involved now because his widow asked me to be because it is too much for her to handle. This is not about money at all for me. I actually am involved simply to be sure my fathers widow(not my mother) will be taken care of. After all she was married to that man for years. God Bless her crazy self. After going thru my uncles home turns out my father may have spent all the liquid assets , or so he thought. There are thousands of dollars in paintings and other artwork in his houses. I guess that would have taken an effort for him to get money out of so that must have been last on his list. The widow will be very well cared for at this point.

So what the widow now needs is a probate attorney to get the remaining items appraised and sold at auction so that those monies can be used to pay off the tax liability and other debts and she can keep anything that is left over.

There may be many issues here, but to the question:

So, now my questions are, what is the clueless attorneys role in this gross mismanagement?

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None. Nothing. Nada. Zip. He was not the fiduciary and had no duty to make sure things were handled by the fiduciary correctly. He gives advice. It can be followed or not. You have no recourse against the attorney civilly, criminally or ethically.

Just one final comment. Considering the OP's description of her father as a con man and the way that KS intestate succession is written ("Heirs of decedent's parents, as if each parent had an equal share and died intestate. If there are no surviving heirs of one parent, everything goes to the heirs of the other parent."), if I were a successor PR of the estate, I would worry that there aren't other legitimate heirs that OP's father conveniently ignored or decided not to search too hard for.

If one has to go back up the family tree to the great uncle's parents and start back down again, it is difficult to believe that one nephew of the deceased is the only legitimate intestate heir.