Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

Filing fee check to Probate court bounced

My friend's sister filed to be administrator of their father's estate. The check she wrote to the probate court on March 27,2007 was returned for insufficient funds but took a couple of months and in the meantime probate continued. On May 30, 2007 a Notice of Bad Check was filed according to the court docket giving the sister until June 19, 2007 to cover the check and the resulting fee. The court also sent the check to the accounting dept. June 30, 2007 for fowarding to the DA's office. On August 27, 2007 the court entered into the docket that the payment was voided, indicating to me that she never covered the check. My question is how does this affect the probate of the estate? Is the probate case still open even though the court has not been paid? If so, is she still Administrator? If the case is effectively voided or thrown out, what are the other family members supposed to do since the estate wasn't finished being settled?


Asked on 10/22/07, 10:17 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Mitchell Roth MW Roth, Professional Law Corporation

Re: Filing fee check to Probate court bounced

One of the tasks of a probate is to decide on who should act at the personal representative of the estate. Absent a court order of dismissal, the probate is still pending. You do not have to accept you sister as administrator if you don't want to, and can contest her status. Meanwhile any filing fees would be the responsibility of the estate for reimbursement. Go check the court file and look to see if the court made an order of dismissal or not. It it was dismissed, there is no impediment to another filing to probate the estate, and this should be done.

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Answered on 10/22/07, 1:11 pm


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