Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California
The executor of the estate told me she needed to go thru decedent's journals to find out who gets what. Now she won't give me a copy of the will. I suspect possible fraud. Final Accounting and Petition for Final Distribution is in one week. If the will is fraudulent, it would be intestate succession. The executor and my son would split the estate. What can I do?
2 Answers from Attorneys
A copy of the will submitted to probate should be in the court file, along with the petition admitting the will into probate. You should be able to see a copy there, and it may have even been provided to you with a copy of the petition for probate. If you want to object to the final accounting, then you need to submit your paperwork and appear at the hearing to make your objections known.
If the estate is significant enough, you should be contacting counsel to help you with this. Contest probate matters are typically not DIY projects.
If the hearing on a Petition for Final Distribution is in one week, then you should have a copy of the Petition and it should say specifically how everything is being distributed.
Long before now there was another Petition to Administer the Estate and if a Will was admitted to Probate, then the terms of the Will would have been presented to you at that time and it seems late (unless you did not receive notice) to be challenging a Will. Late, but not necessarily impossible.
These are complex legal issues and you should at least consult with an attorney to see what your options are at this point.
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