My late father's estate...PLEASE HELP! CALIFORNIA LAWYERS NEEDED

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wantsclosure

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Thanks for your help, here's the just of it. My Husband's father died in 2002. He was not married at that time. My huisband is the oldest of four children ( all whom are consenting adults ). His girlfriend left him alone to die, ( they share no children, all of my husbands father's children are from my husbands mother) she had fled to Mexico ( we were not aware of this until after the funeral).At the time of his father's death his father was living with his girlfriend, who after the death (right before the funeral) had my husband and his siblings sign over ( with a notarized paper in which we were never given a copy of) one house and one truck, as far as we know. The girlfriend was never honest or straightforward about his father's estate, ( she was very vague) she always said that this was all his father had as far as she knew. Now this girlfriend resides in Vegas with another male ( whom she is possibly married to, and was married to while she was with my husband's father) and she is having a lawyer call and threaten us that my husband needs to sign a paper (she refused to disclose what signing this additional paper will entail) giving her all of his father's estate or they will court order my husband to appear to court. This is after that fact that he signed (along with his other siblings) the notarized paper post his father's death that no one received a copy of. The lawyer refuses to say what this "new" paperwork is for, and my husband does NOT want to sign it. Two of his other siblings did however sign the " new" paper. We are curious why this paper came to be, what it is for, and why after all of this time she is so ADAMANT that we sign it, and why any lawyer in his/her right mind would pursue it? At this time we would like to REVERSE everything and have her /"the girlfriend" get ZERO if possible due to the knowledge we have collected since my father-in-laws death.
We DO NOT know the following:
What we can do
Was the girlfriend married when she was with my father in law, or would common law marriage rule in this case being that she was with his father for several years but never legally married??
What the California laws or statue of limitations are
if anyone ever filed my husband's father's death certificate
if his father owns any other property besides the house that (remains open in paper due to his cousin inhabiting it)
If we can reverse the notarized paper that my husband signed due to mental duress at the time
how to/if it's even possible put my husband's name on the estate of his father
etc.
if his father has an insurance policy or a will/ bank accounts etc.
We KNOW/HAVE the following:
We have my husband's father's original social security card
We have his full name and marriage license from when he was married to my husband's mother ( but no longer is)
We know his father used a bank but we don't know how to gain access
We know that the name of my husband's cousins house is still in my husband's father's name

We need to retain a lawyer as soon as possible to investigate all of this information. And guide us through the process/ proper avenues so his father can rest in peace. His father called him right before he died and verbally told him that he wanted him/ my husband to have everything. His father knew he was dying for at least a year prior to his death but his English was a barrier in completing the proper channels to prevent this.
My husband and I had just had our child and we had just bought a home and were unable to fulfill his last wish of dropping everything and coming down to assist, besides we thought we had at least another year or so prior to his father dying. It was extremely heartbreaking and emotional for everyone involved. We have two young children at present, one of which we named after my husband's father.
Please let us know what our options are asap!!
THANK YOU!!!!
 
You Have To Open Probate!

It is pretty obvious that your father in law died without a will, but the first thing to do, is to check with the Probate Court of the county he resided in to see if a will was ever filed and if so, then the "Executor" named in the will should be contacted and you go from there. But it is highly unlikely there was ever a will or your husband and the siblings would have been contacted a long time ago.

So your father in law is said to have died "Intestate" which means he had not made a will at the time of his death and in the absence of a will in California, the deceased's estate goes to the surviving spouse and if there is none, then estate will be distributed amongst immediate family according to state law known as "Intestate Succession."

But before any of that can take place you will have to go through a process known as "Probate" by filing a petition to open probate and since there is no will, the court's first task will be to appoint an "Administrator" to handle the process and the court usually chooses the closest living relative, or a person who stands to inherit some portion of the deceased's assets.

There is no statute of limitation for opening probate and it can be done at any time, but the sooner the better and it is of course always a good idea to retain a probate attorney, but you can prepare and file the petition to open probate yourselves. Once probate is opened, notice is sent to all his (father in law's) legal heirs about the probate hearing. The notice must also be published in the newspaper in the locale where he had lived to let any creditors know about the hearing.

It would be the job of the administrator to do a complete search to tally up the estate and preparing an inventory showing the assets and liabilities of the deceased. You can find out (for example) what other properties (if any) there are out there that belonged to the deceased by doing a Grantor-Grantee Index check with all the counties in which he had resided and you may want to do the same for Las Vegas in case he has some properties there for which you can open probate in that jurisdiction as well.

Also, I don't think you need to fret too much about "reversing" any paper work to take back whatever it was that it had conveyed to his girlfriend because no conveyance or distribution of your father in law's assets would be legal or legitimate without going through probate and do not pay any mind to the threats from the attorney. You can let him know that you will send him a notice of the probate hearing as a courtesy which he can attend to air any gripe he has on behalf of the "girlfriend."

Last but not least, you can check the marriage records index with the county where your father in law had lived to see if he and the Vegas lady had actually entered the bliss of matrimony; but I highly doubt it.

Happy Probating!

fredrikklaw
 
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