wills & probate

[paredes]

texas, my father passed away 10-16-98. He had 5 daughters, 3 from a second marriage and my sister and I from his first marriage. He had a will made, which left one of his daughters as the execuator of the estate but I do not know if she has filed the will through probate. I have gone to the court house to check if the will has gone through probate but they keep telling me that it has not been filed. What happens if it does not get filed? Can it be challanged if the time limit is up? I know he had a clause that if anyone challenged the will they would only be entilled to $1.00. Does this still apply if his will was not filed through probate court? The step sister that kept his books never disclosed how much money was in the bank. I never wanted to know, it was not important to me while he was alive. All I wanted was to make sure he had enough money for him to live on. He received $4000/mo retirement and $600/mo from the rental of his home. His expenses were only $1695/mo at the retirement home. All the other money was put into CDs. His daughters have not been in contact with my sister and I so I do not know what happened to the will. I do not have a lawyer because if I challenge the will and get the $1.00 it will not be cost effective.

 

[advisor10]

JUNE 28, 2001

DEAR PAREDES:

Even though no will was filed, someone in the family (probably the daughter) had to take care of his final affairs (paying his debts, taxes, funeral expenses, claiming his assets), etc. It could be that his estate was not large enough to require that will be filed for probate, or it could be simply a matter of the daughter executor intentionally deciding not to file the will in order to keep everything secret so that no one else in the family would know what is going on.

The CD's were probably put in joint tenancy and automatically went directly to the co-beneficiary and don't have to go through the estate probate process. The money has probably been spent by now and it would probably not be worth the trouble and legal expense to try to claim anything.

You really need to contact the executor daughter to ask her if anyone on your side of the family was named as a beneficiary in the will.

If you wanted to, you could hire an attorney to file a petition with the probate court to force that she file the will in probate court, but do you think the estate had enough assets in it to be worth the time and trouble? You would NOT be contesting the will, just merely trying to get the probate court to enforce the provisions of the will to make sure that any beneficiaries mentioned would receive what they are entitled to.

SINCERELY,

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