Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Florida

a family friend died of alcoholism 45 years ago. A week before he died, he drunkenly had his attorney draw up his will disinheriting his wife because he was in a spiteful mood, which happened frequently between him & his friends & family. He left everything to his mother, or to his estranged nephew if his mother predeceased. He was nearly penniless when he died. His widow continued to care for his bedridden mother until she passed. Then she managed his estate, as she had been doing even when he was alive, turning it into an entity worth many millions of dollars. Now an ex-friend's children are trying to re-open his will in order to retrieve a letter written by their father to him. It is worth a great deal of money, but as a letter, was owned by him, not the man who wrote it to him. This is a literary battle involving bailment & copyright. Do the non-relatives have the right to re-open the will?


Asked on 12/20/14, 4:22 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Barry Stein De Cardenas, Freixas, Stein & Zachary

Consult an attorney with all the paperwork. The Estate of the man who died is long over and closed. If the mother received the assets and they increased in value than they were the mother's until her death. Her heirs are the ones entitled to those assets. Not enough facts to answer any issue which you have raised.

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Answered on 12/21/14, 6:20 am


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