A question about Wills and Power of Attorney

[sandman03276]

The short version...My Dad passed away in 1993 and my Mom remarried in 1998. She recently passed away as well, but was quite ill in her last few years. The man she married tricked the court into giving him Power of Attorney over my Mom and late Dads assetts and he transfered all of them into his own name before her death. Now he has filed a bogus will with the Probate Court in Concord, NH and has her real will in his possession, apparently taken from her safety deposit box and replaced with this questionable will. Is there anything I and my brothers and sister can do to make him produce the real will and recover our parents assets or is it to late?

 

[lwpat]

You can challenge him being named the PR of her estate. The court will presume that she destroyed the will in the safe deposit box and that this will is legitimate. You will have to prove otherwise and that will be difficult and costly.

 

[sandman03276]

The original will, which I have seen myself, does still exist. Her new husband admits to having a copy of it, however his claim is that the Will he submitted to Probate superceeds my Parents old will. I believe it is either not a will at all or has been altered to suit his needs... I'm not sure how to proceed with this. It almost seems that it should be illegal to get Power of Attorney over someone and then take all their assets and put them in your own name. I don't know if it matters, but they did have substantial assets before all this happened.

 

[lwpat]

Again you can challenge him being named the PR of the estate but you will need more that just sayso. You also have to do it timely. You have the right to have an expert examine the will that has been submitted to the court. I have seen the first pages be on newer paper than the signatory page, wording that did not match, etc. If you are going to contest you really need an attorney and be prepared to spend 5 to 10,000 for starters.

 

[sandman03276]

Thanks for the help... I'll have to think about this to see if it's worth going through all the trouble. It's seems this fellow would have all his bases covered since one of his brothers is a Lawyer and the other is a Banker...