Who are the parties to this contract (who signed it--just your dad?) and is this contract included as part of the divorce settlement?
Did your mother agree to this and did she have her own attorney to look over this contract before it was drawn up or did dad's attorney draw it up?
This contract looks like it will benefit the wife and kids but may have been a clever way to trick you all into thinking it would be honored after his death when actually there may or may not be enough money in his estate to honor that agreement. At some point you will need your own probate attorney or business law to examine this contract to see what options you may need to pursue. If the widow or executor are not going to start paying you may want to submit a claim to the estate since this appears to be a valid debt.
POD's are not part of the estate and are payable to whoever was named beneficiary of them, unless no beneficiary was named and then they do go into the estate. If father really wanted to help wife or kids he should have named any of THEM as beneficiary of the POD.
Another aspect that looks like trickery is the phrase "bequeathed 50% of the net estate to kids"--net means after all taxes and expenses are deducted so the amount that the 50% is computed on may be greatly reduced, but at least 50% of that is better than nothing.
When you say the will left you a "lot", do you have any idea of what that figure adds up to in total dollar value or are you just going by a description of the assets?
You will need an attorney to help you figure all of this out but at least father was kind enough to leave you something. Is this estate being probated now?
Your attorney can get more information from the other side about the value of the estate.
DANDY DON IN OKLAHOMA (
[email protected])
