Doing some research...Hypothtical Situation

[Spooky]

Tenant is renting large house to use as somewhat of a homeless shelter, landlord is a very nice man who sometimes waives monthly rent if donations to the shelter have been low for the month.
Tenant is suddenly served with a written notice that says he is going to be evicted. Confused, he makes attempts to contact the landlord. He is not able to make contact with the landlord either by phone or personal contact.
The tenant at this point seeks legal counsel.
What has happened is the landlord has died and in his will has left the property to the tenant. (the tenant will not find this out until much later) Landlord's son forges his father's name to a document to issue the eviction for no reason except that he is very upset that the property in question was left to the tenant and not him.
The Landlord's son has the tenant and the tenant's lawyer to believe that his father is still alive and out of town (or I might have his excuse be that his father is very ill) and he is acting on his father's behalf.
What I want to know is what steps a lawyer would take for the tenant to resolve this situation? Could the Landlord's son get away with (for the time being)either forging his dad's signiture or signing his own as he is taking care of his father's affairs in his absense (or illness)?
Would (and how would) the lawyer go about getting an injuntion to stop the eviction until they can talk to the landlord?
I just need some advice to make my fictional situation believable.
Thank you for any assistance!!! Feel free to e-mail me instead of posting!!!

Sharon

 

[LL]

There is always a remedy, if there is a genuine problem. It is generally no problem to find a way to get a hearing in court.

Part of the exercise, here, is to get it into the right court, and that is basically the court that will deal with wills and inheritances.

There being no knowledge at this point of the details of the will, the son is presumed to be the inheritor, and any court will accept that he has to deal with managing the property as best he can, even without documents. My secretary has that problem right now. Her father died without a will, divorced, and she is the only child. She rented the property out, in order to get some rental money to pay the mortgage, even while the Probate Court is waiting for her turn. In the meanwhile, her uncle, her father's brother has hired a lawyer to try (without merit) to get a share of the house.

Thus, the son would be recognized as the one to manage the property even without officially becoming the owner, until the will is probated. As such, he can terminate tenancies and take on new ones. Any court would accept that.

The change comes when details of the will become known to everyone. Then, I don't know what happens. I would suppose that a court would grant some temporary protection until the will can be probated, if by doing so they are preventing the possibility that the ultimate intentions of the will-maker might be frustrated.