Articles Posted in Trust & Probate Litigation

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Cut out the heirs who challenge the will using No Contest Clauses

Challenges can occur

Image of a courtroom doorIf a will or a trust does not make an equal division of the estate then an unhappy heir might want to make a challenge. The law does not require you to equally divide your estate equally amongst your children or to give anything to them for that matter. Most children or in some instances brothers or sisters where there are no children feel that they are entitled to an inheritance. Not everybody understands or believes that a person making a will or trust can leave his or her assets to anyone. This has led to litigation challenging the provisions of the will or trust.

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Letting Some of the Kids Live in Mom’s House May Lead to Costly Litigation

Frequently we run across situations where parents will leave their residences to one or more of their children in their will or their trust. If they only have one child then the situation is usually okay but when there are multiple children and some are living in the house and some are not there can be problems. Allowing some children to live in Mom’s house messes up the other sibling’s inheritance.

Image of smug child who mom like more than sibblings

The Back Story

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Doctor Ran Off with his Nurse  =  Lifetime Chase

Image of Doctor and nurseWe handled a case that spread across decades. It started out uncomplicated as we were the attorneys for a conservator who was handling the affairs of his distant cousin. The conservatee, Linda, was formerly Dr. Smith’s nurse. Linda had married Dr. Smith who apparently had a prior marriage and at least one daughter, but Dr. Smith had died many years ago and left his new wife, Linda, about $500,000 to live on.

The conservatee, Linda, became incompetent so a conservatorship was established to handle her money. We had been filing normal conservatorship accounting reports with the court every two years to prove how her money was being spent. When she passed away last year she had about $50,000 of the original $500,000 left and we had to determine how do distribute the estate and to whom.

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Older Affluent Man – New Wife & Step Mother – Man’s Kids Lose!

We recently handled an unfortunate situation where a mature man who was quite successful and had a lot of assets including several companies married a younger woman. He was only married a couple of years when he unfortunately contracted cancer which turned out to be fatal.

Wanting to Take Care of New Wife, Inadvertently Cuts Own Kids from Inheritance

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Wife Passes Away in Middle of Divorce  =  Messy Litigation

We handled a probate court case involving a lady named Susan who died while in the middle of a divorce. She had an expensive ocean view house and lots of valuable furniture and jewelry. At first, nobody could figure out who owned what because Sue’s husband had moved out and filed for divorce. He was claiming in the divorce proceedings that he was owed a lot of money from Sue’s estate and Sue’s divorce attorney was making counter claims back against him because of the huge and lavish debts that he ran up buying fancy clothes in Los Angeles.

Image of Litigation Lawyer spinning plates on sticks

Where to Start?!

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Please Don’t become a participant in a lost Will disaster

Will Definition

Can't Find WIllA Will is a written document which states to whom a person’s belongings, money and property are to be given upon death. A Will is typically effective upon a person’s death.

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