My Uncle Passed Away With A Will Questions

[LdiJ]

Agreed. The probate lawyer I contacted said so as well. Below is the verbiage of the will.

The will is two pages with the second page declaring witnesses. On the first page there are 5 points.
1. Unmarried man leaving all my estate to "mother"
2. In the event she predeceases me I give my full estate to "brother".
3. I order and direct that my just debts and funeral expenses , expenses for my administration of my estate any inheritance taxes and succession taxes, state or federal, upon my estate shall be paid as soon after my death or as practical.
4. (Not exact verbiage but to the point) I nominate and appoint "mother" as executor of this will. In the event she predeceases me, I appoint "brother". I further direct that no appointee here under shall be required to give any bond for the faithful performance of his/her duties.
5. I hereby authorize my executor to exercise all the powers and rights, discretions, duties, and immunities conferred upon fiduciaries to the extent permitted by law with full power to sell. lease, mortgage, invest, reinvest, or otherwise dispose the assets of my estate.

Other than signatures, that's it.

JUST FOUND OUT that the cousin said he contacted another probate lawyer who told him the original non-probate lawyer was right. I don't believe this for one hot minute...because, cousin is basically so frustrated that he has washed his hands of this. He also has a gf who screams in the back of the room at him when he is on the phone talking to anyone about this. Yeah, it's getting intense. So, I guess, given all the indecisiveness, I'm gonna call another probate attorney myself to see what they have to say for myself and move forward from there. But since I'll have to wait until Monday now, do you have any thoughts? TY

My thoughts are that you get yourself appointed as executor of the estate and proceed as if Uncle died without a will, assuming that a second probate attorney agrees with the first one that you contacted. Otherwise, if the consensus is that the brother's children inherit it all, then walk away and let them deal with the estate.

 

[zddoodah]

The will is two pages with the second page declaring witnesses. On the first page there are 5 points.
1. Unmarried man leaving all my estate to "mother"
2. In the event she predeceases me I give my full estate to "brother".
3. I order and direct that my just debts and funeral expenses , expenses for my administration of my estate any any inheritance taxes and succession taxes, state or federal, upon my estate shall be paid as soon after my death or as practical.
4. (Not exact verbiage but to the point) I nominate and appoint "mother" as executor of this will. In the event she predeceases me, I appoint "brother". I further direct that no appointee here under shall be required to give any bond for the faithful performance of his/her duties.
5. I hereby authorize my executor to exercise all the powers and rights, discretions, duties, and immunities conferred upon fiduciaries to the extent permitted by law with full power to sell. lease, mortgage, invest, reinvest, or otherwise dispose the assets of my estate.

Sorry it took me a while to get back to this. Here's what I'm seeing:

When a beneficiary under a will dies before the testator, they gift to the predeceased beneficiary "lapses." As you have described it, your uncle left his entire estate to his mother. Perhaps anticipating that is mother would die before him, your uncle provided that, if his mother died first, his estate would go to his brother. However, it seems he did not provide what would happen if the brother died first.

Most, if not all, states have something called an anti-lapse law. Generally, that law provides that, if a beneficiary dies before the testator and the testator does not otherwise provide for the disposition of the gift to the predeceased beneficiary, the gift goes to the heirs of the beneficiary. Michigan's anti-lapse law is found in MCL 700.2603. The unique thing about this law (at least I think it's unique) is that it only applies if the predeceased beneficiary "is a grandparent, a grandparent's descendant, or a stepchild of either the testator or the donor of a power of appointment exercised by the testator's will." Your uncle's brother is a descendant of your uncle's grandparents, so the anti-lapse law should apply such that the heirs of your uncle's brother. Since it sounds like the cousin mentioned in your original post is not a child (or otherwise an heir) of your uncle's brother, he'll be out of luck in terms of inheritance.

JUST FOUND OUT that the cousin said he contacted another probate lawyer who told him the original non-probate lawyer was right. I don't believe this for one hot minute...because, cousin is basically so frustrated that he has washed his hands of this.

I don't really understand this explanation. Your cousin's frustration has nothing to do with how the law applies. Why do you not believe this? By the way, the concept of per stirpes is of no relevance to this.