My rights as my son's conservator?

[Murfey71]

What is the name of your state? Missouri

I have been court appointed as my son's conservator. His father died and he is the sole heir. I have a couple of questions as to my rights as conservator (when I use "we" I am referring to me as my son's conservator):

1. We requested and received a family allowance. His father was paying $74 a month in child support so I requested $888.00 (12 months of child support). Should this money be available to me to spend on my child, as I would have done with the child support?


2. We requested and received exempt property (we did this due to my son's grandmother trying to claim $72,000 from the estate; my intent is to have a personal sale of the items which include all household furniture). We had to rent 2 storage sheds to store the property. I have been paying the rent for the storage sheds out of my income. Am I entitled to reimbursement from my son's inheritance for this?

3. I have had to miss some work during probate. I have also had to pay for court costs when my son's grandmother claimed she had a lien on the truck that my son was awarded as exempt property. I will have to miss work on several more occasions due to fighting her claims. Am I entitled to some type of reimbursement for the court costs and/or missed wages due to my appearances in court and lawyer appointments?

I read these forums quite often and because of that I am sure someone will accuse me of being selfish and money hungry, so I will state up-front that is not the case. I am a single mother of 3 children and this is beginning to create a financial burden.

Thanks you in advance for any information that will be helpful.What is the name of your state?

 

[rmet4nzkx]

Others may address the issues of probate more but I have some questions.
Was dad ever married? Were there other legal children? Were you ever maried to him? Was he employed? Were there insurance or pension plans? Was there a will? Who was appointed the administrator? What was the cause of death? Did he own any real property?
Have you applied for social security survivors benefits for your child? How old was dad, how old is your son? Does your child support agreement include any language re college?

 

[rmet4nzkx]

Here is a link to your other thread re this subject that you posted last year 2 months after the death. Which answers some of my questions. At that time you were concerned re the house keys and since explain that the furniture is now in storage, so I take it you have resolved some of those issues and still have an attorney? Have you asked them these quesitions?
https://forum.freeadvice.com/showthread.php?t=298816

What is the name of your state?? Missouri

Drew's (my 10 yr old son) father passed away on October 25, 2005. Though we live relatively close, we were not informed of this passing for several weeks after his father had been cremated (and we were still not informed by a family member). Mike's (Drew's father) family was very hush-hush about the ordeal, had him cremated, and no obituary. I found out as word got around town & contacted the coroner. Paternaty had been established and Mike was divorced for several years before his death. There was no will, and no other children.

My son is the sole heir of his father's estate. Mike's mother is the only person with keys to his house and has been removing items which should actually be my son's. With a lawyer, on December 20th the Cout ordered the Public Administrator as the Personal Representative of the Estate. However, I drove past the estate this evening & noticed lights on in the house. I called my attorney who informed me to contact the administrator, which I did. I explained to him that Mike's family should not have access to the house because they are removing items that do not belong to them. He was very disconcerned about this.

It would seem that my son should have possession of the house keys as sole heir, not his grandmother. By appointing the administrator we were trying to keep them out of the estate. My lawyer seems to have very little interest in this, stating that the administrator will handle all of this (which he is not doing). What rights do I have on behalf of my son to do anything about this? It is a fairly large estate considering the area we live; a house, 9 acres, 3 vehicles, a very well furnished home. And they seem to be able to still walk in & take everything they wish. This does not seem right. My son can not even enter his father's house!

Please inform me if this is actually the proper legal system and if not, what immediate steps I can take to get the house keys for my son & out of his grandmother's hands.
------------------

Hire a new lawyer who is actually willing to enforce his client's rights. What should be done is that the estate should be held in trust until the minor child reaches the age of majority -- get a lawyer to have a trustee put in place and get the estate put into the control of the trustee.

 

[BlondiePB]

What is the name of your state? Missouri

I have been court appointed as my son's conservator. His father died and he is the sole heir. I have a couple of questions as to my rights as conservator (when I use "we" I am referring to me as my son's conservator):

1. We requested and received a family allowance. His father was paying $74 a month in child support so I requested $888.00 (12 months of child support). Should this money be available to me to spend on my child, as I would have done with the child support?


2. We requested and received exempt property (we did this due to my son's grandmother trying to claim $72,000 from the estate; my intent is to have a personal sale of the items which include all household furniture). We had to rent 2 storage sheds to store the property. I have been paying the rent for the storage sheds out of my income. Am I entitled to reimbursement from my son's inheritance for this?

3. I have had to miss some work during probate. I have also had to pay for court costs when my son's grandmother claimed she had a lien on the truck that my son was awarded as exempt property. I will have to miss work on several more occasions due to fighting her claims. Am I entitled to some type of reimbursement for the court costs and/or missed wages due to my appearances in court and lawyer appointments?

I read these forums quite often and because of that I am sure someone will accuse me of being selfish and money hungry, so I will state up-front that is not the case. I am a single mother of 3 children and this is beginning to create a financial burden.

Thanks you in advance for any information that will be helpful.What is the name of your state?

Where's your guardian/conservator attorney in all this?

 

[Murfey71]

Here is a link to your other thread re this subject that you posted last year 2 months after the death. Which answers some of my questions. At that time you were concerned re the house keys and since explain that the furniture is now in storage, so I take it you have resolved some of those issues and still have an attorney? Have you asked them these quesitions?
https://forum.freeadvice.com/showthread.php?t=298816

Yes, we have resolved some of those issues (great research on your part, it did answer a lot of your questions!). We are actually in the final (I hope) stages of probate. I do still have an attorney. I contacted others that I thought might be more helpful but there seems to be an issue of attorneys not wanting to take cases in other counties and there are only two in this county...the other is my son's grandmother's attorney.

I have asked my attorney these questions. We did submit a request to have a personal sale but as for the other questions, he doesn't seem to be very intelligent about. He does think that I can be reimbursed for the court costs but has done nothing to enforce a reimbursement.

To be quite honest, I have done more research and investigation into the law and have submitted my findings to my attorney and then he acts upon them. I believe if I were not so forceful in all of this, my son would end up with absolutely no inheritance. We live in a small rural area and everyone seems to take the path of least resistance -- if I don't suggest something, or sometimes push for something, it doesn't get done. That's why I am relying on the people of this forum at this time. I have great faith in all of you.

 

[Murfey71]

Where's your guardian/conservator attorney in all this?

I am hoping that my reply to rmet4nzkx answered this question.

 

[Murfey71]

I have answered the questions posed to me, but I have not received counter replies from anyone. This is still an issue and I would like a reply if you know the answers to my questions. If you don't, please simply state such so that I can take my questions elsewhere. I thank you in advance for your replies.

 

[BlondiePB]

I have answered the questions posed to me, but I have not received counter replies from anyone. This is still an issue and I would like a reply if you know the answers to my questions. If you don't, please simply state such so that I can take my questions elsewhere. I thank you in advance for your replies.

Murfey, we are all volunteers here. Due to things currently happening with the BOD of my HOA who are total idiots handling damages caused by Hurricane Wilma, and my other responsibilities, I haven't been answering a lot of threads lately.

Have you even read your duties as administrator to the estate you are probating? Have you read your state statutes regarding your duties and powers as conservator of estate? Do you have an estate account set up to pay for the estate expenses? You are entitled to a fee for administering & probating the estate. When you are conservator for your own child's estate, would you be doing what you are doing for your child without compensation? Conservators can petition for compensation which MUST be itemized and NOT what you are doing as administrator probating the estate. These are two different matters to be handled & accounted for separately.

If approved by the judge, you will receive a court order. Judges will take into consideration what you should do for your child as conservator of the estate without being compensated because that is what parents do for their children. Consider hiring another attorney in the nearest city to your location that knows what he/she is doing.

 

[Murfey71]

Murfey, we are all volunteers here. Due to things currently happening with the BOD of my HOA who are total idiots handling damages caused by Hurricane Wilma, and my other responsibilities, I haven't been answering a lot of threads lately.

I see you were a bit too busy to read the posts here within. Had you read all of the posts, you would have seen that...

Have you even read your duties as administrator to the estate you are probating?

I am not the administrator to the estate that is being probated. We requested that the public administrator do this. But even so...

Have you read your state statutes regarding your duties and powers as conservator of estate? Do you have an estate account set up to pay for the estate expenses? You are entitled to a fee for administering & probating the estate.

I have read all that I can find on the duties and powers of the administrator because he was not doing a very good job; I simply was not able to get my attorney to enforce the administrator to do his job until the last few months.

When you are conservator for your own child's estate, would you be doing what you are doing for your child without compensation? Conservators can petition for compensation which MUST be itemized and NOT what you are doing as administrator probating the estate. These are two different matters to be handled & accounted for separately.

Thanks for this information, but they would naturally be handled and accounted for separately since I am only the conservator

If approved by the judge, you will receive a court order. Judges will take into consideration what you should do for your child as conservator of the estate without being compensated because that is what parents do for their children. Consider hiring another attorney in the nearest city to your location that knows what he/she is doing.

And as I stated, I have checked into other attorneys but there are very few in this county and others are reluctant to take cases in other counties. Thank you for your information and I wish you well on the issues in your life, which you spoke of.