father passed away. anyway to find out if there's a will?

[rocketman122]

Hello everyone.

me my sister and brother live overseas. my father lived in the US (NY) with his newly married wife. she and my sister hate each other. she asked her if my dad left a will and she said no. we believe that he might have left some funds and we would like
to know what are the steps needed to find this out. we believe this to be true because my sisters mother in law gave then a nice sum to buy a house and my sister asked my dad if he can chip in as well. he said "its possible but i'll have to ask ****"
he was quite a frugal person and in the past there was an insurance payout he had invested in years ago.
if there is no will, who does his belongings go to?

we dont have a SS#, nor a bank account number. what are the procedures for something like this?
any help appreciated.
have a great weekend.

 

[anteater]

The problem is that you don't know how your father and his spouse owned their assets or if your father designated any beneficiaries for those assets. If he owned assets jointly with right of survivorship with the spouse or he named designated beneficiaries for assets or placed assets in a trust, those assets would not be subject to probate.

(And, the 3 of you are not really in a position to try digging out that information yourselves.)

If your father owned assets solely and without designated beneficiaries and there is no will, then (after any debts and estate administration expenses are paid) his assets would be divided in accordance with New York's descent and distribution statute:

Distribution shall then be as follows:

(a) If a decedent is survived by:

(1) A spouse and issue, fifty thousand dollars and one-half of the residue to the spouse, and the balance thereof to the issue by representation....

You might try contacting the Surrogate's Court in the county in which he resided to inquire if a probate action has been commenced. If not, you might consider retaining a probate attorney in that county to help you.

 

[rocketman122]

thank you very much for your insight. IYO, would you say its worth pursuing? I personally told my sister, leave it be. I told her its going to be an expensive battle and you dont even know if he had anything. we can only go by a hunch.

how much roughly does a probate attorney cost? are we talking about hundreds or thousands of rupees? truthfully, I have no idea what a probate is haha. I searched the term but still didnt understand it so well. my mind can only absorb so much haha.