Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Illinois
I am the administrator of my mother estate, who died in June 2010, with no will. Their are 3 other heirs. One of the heirs got her name put on my mother's bank accounts 6 weeks before she died. We hired a lawyer to have that money returned to the estate. He went through getting court order for discovery and an order to do depositions. The heir has spent the money on personal use. A few months ago an insurance company put a lien on her share of the estate. Our attorney was trying to settle before trial and kept postponing court dates.We told him the only settlement we would make was if she agreed the money she spent in the bank accounts would come off of the rest of her share of the estate. Our attorney also kept making phone calls to this insurance company, which we disagred with as this was the other heirs problem, not the estate's. We believed the heir's attorney should have been dealing with them. Our attorney, the day before he was to do the depositions on this heir said he had an agreement with her to take a $4,000 settlement, which he told us would go directly to the insurance company. He didn't call for 2 months, and I finally got a hold of him to try to finalize the estate. He sent me an agreement to sign giving the insurance company half of the heirs share of the money in the estate and giving the heir $4,000. He never told us before about any such agreement with this insurance company. We believed she was taking the $4,000 as the final settlement/distribution of the estate as she had already spent most of her share with the money she had in the bank accounts. We have already paid him $8,000 and he has done nothing, and we told him the only settlement we would make with her was if she acknowledged the funds in the bank accounts were to come off of the share. I told him we did not ever agree to pay her or this insurance company any more than $4,000, we thought that was the final settlement with her. As far as her lien is concerned that should not be about problem as they should only get what she settles for from the estate. Our attorney did not move forward with trying to prove the money in the bank accounts should be considered part of the estate and just keeps eating up money talking with this insurance company. Now he says he will "make some phone calls" to see what he can do. We do not believe he is looking after our interest and would like to get this resolved.
1 Answer from Attorneys
It sounds to me like your attorney has done a great deal of work on your behalf and that your anger at the other heir has clouded your judgment. You may also not understand how these things often work out in the real world. You should follow your attorney's advice. It will likely cost a great deal more if you continue to resist the settlement he is recommending. $8,000 in attorney's fees if very minimal in cases such as this and right now you seem to be arguing over $4000.00. Are you willing to spend another 10-20K to argue your point?
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