Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in New Jersey

Re: locating a will

That's a strange question. How do you know there is a Will if nobody has seen it? I don't know of any way to locate the attorney who prepared a Will that may not even exist. I assume you may need to do some investigation or file a lawsuit and take the spouses deposition to try and get him/her to provide information concerning any Will the deceased spouse may have signed.

Re: locating a will

Place an ad in NJ Lawyer, NJ Law Journal and/or a paper like The Star-Ledger, saying something like: Anyone having information about a Last Will and Testament of (name of the decedent) please contact (your information). You could also call all local attorneys near where the decedent resided and ask them. Jon's suggestion of litigation may be costly, time consuming and produce no results if the spouse is dishonest. You provide no information about the decedent's assets (value) and how they were registered (individually, jointly or had registrations like POD or "in trust for"), or had designated beneficiaries like life insurance or retirement plans. A Will only covers individual assets and any other registration falls outside of the Will. Finally, depending on the size of the estate, if the person died without a Will, or one cannot be found, they are deemed as dying "intestate" (without a Will) and both the spouse and children may be entitled to shares of the estate under the intestate laws. Contact me directly if you need more information.