Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Georgia
My father recently passed away. He had been diagnosed with Parkinsons with dimentia and had been placed on medication for the preceding year for this condition that would leave him at times not knowing who he was, where he was or what was going on. After his death I was made aware that he had recently changed his will substantially, leaving most everything of value to his daughter who was also his care giver.=, whereas prior his estate had been equally divided among all his children. I am concerned that that changes in the will may not reflect my fathers wishes and he may have been influenced and unaware of the impact of the changes due to his illness. Is there anything that I can do.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Posting the same question twice won't change the answer. See the previous answer.
You ask a complicated question. While your father may have had dementia, he may also have had lucid moments. I'm not a medical doctor and don't know for sure. Also, you state that it was your sister who was the care-giver. It is very hard to care for someone in this kind of shape. It may be that your father wanted to give your sister his assets as a thank-you for caring for him when none of his other children pitched in or bothered to visit him. In such case, maybe that is what your father wanted.
It may also be that your sister was a conniving greedy person and that she took your father who was out of his mind to an attorney and the attorney participated in this and that a new will was done to screw the others out of their share.
So what you need to do is immediately go to a probate litigation attorney in the county/state where your father lived at the time of his death to discuss filing a caveat to the will. A caveat may not revive a prior will if it is upheld. However, your father's property would pass in equal shares to his children, so I think it would be in the 6 children's best interests to get together and pool funds to hire an attorney.
You can discuss the scope of assets involved, the costs in filing a caveat and of the lawsuit and what you may receive. It may be that when your sister gets served that she will be more amenable to working out a more equitable deal. You will also have to talk to your father's doctors as well as the lawyer who drafted the new will to (they will have to be subpoenaed once you do the caveat) to glean more details as to your father's mental state.
Depending on the facts, it will dictate whether you succeed or not.
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