Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

The time to contest a Will starts when you have been given formal notice of the Will being admitted to probate. If you were in fact the only legal heir,or even an heir to part of the estate, you would have to be given notice of the probate. If the Church took the assets without any right to them, you could argue that it created a constructive trust for you and now must turn the assets over to you. If there is a pastor above the one who took the money, he will likely exert presssure for the money to be given to you to avert a scandel. Readings of Wills do not occur.

You need to do the leg work of getting a copy of the Will, copies of the relevant parts of the probate [often can be found on the local court's web site], find out if there was any trust property was put into and someone else was designated as the beneficiary, asking your mother's friends and relatives and the pastor what they know [your other may have for religious reasons disinherited you], tracing who the owners of the real property have been since your mother purchased it, reading some books such as those from Nolo Press to learn what is involved in probate, etc. I doubt you will be able by yourself to handle the likely fight over the estate, so you will need to hire an attorney to determine what the situation is and if you can recover anything.

Good luck.

[not proof read]