Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

First of all, the administrator appoints the attorney of their selection; immediately inform the former attorney that wiith the terminiation of your brother's position as administrator he/she no longer was attorney to the estate and must 1) notlify all they [brother and attorney] dealt with that they are no longer represents for the estate, any work done after the terminiation date may not be reimburseable, all assets must be returned to the estate and copies of all correspondence and other communications and any money or other assets turned over to you as estate administrator [and you notify those others parties yourself as you can not trust your brother or his attorney to do so], 2) demand that within 5 days brother and attorney turnover to you all assets, correspondence [including electronic], papers, etc from estate and billing for his services [not to pay him/her but to see who they contacted and what they did], 3) contact the lender to get the foreclosure stopped on the basis that the loan should never have been given to your brother or in the form it was given [the title insurance policy written just before the loan should have noted the property was owned by your mother and their was no court order transferring title to your brother as an individual so how could he put the house up as security] and that sale of the house might result in the estate's inablity to ever recover it and the basis of a suit againt the lender, 4) point out in a letter to your brother than going into bankruptcy only involves asssets legally his and does prevent him from having to pay some portion of his debts and has no direct effect on money or assets illegally obtained. Point out to him that his behavior will definitely result in a civil suit against him to recover what he illegally took and the damages he caused, sanctions by the probate judge, and possible criminal action but do not threaten the criminal punishment as that could be interpreted as blackmail]. There are other things you should also do.

Go through the entire court probate file [you may be able to review all or parts on line; if you are in Alameda County go to domainweb.com, where you might have to put in the date of a court appearance and then go to register of action].

If you do not already have an attorney representing you, get one immediately as the case is difficult enough for an attorney to handle let alone a lay person.

As to suing the former attorney, I doubt you can sue hilm to pay off the loan and in any case by the time you got a judgment foreclosure would have happened. The estate can sue for its damages. But the attorney acts only at the request of the administrator, so how much of the improper action was by the attorney is probably unknown at this time. He/she also might be subject to State Bar punishment. But your immediate problem is stopping the foreclosure sale.

Good luck. I personally am also involved in a family probate in Alameda County in which the first administrator was a crook; the court has been of little help.