Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in North Carolina

You raise a problem which I consistently hear. Frankly, it does not matter what your father may have said to you and your family over the years. I don't know why people do this but they do.

What matters is only what is in the will and if the beneficiary of the will is not you then that is it assuming that the will is valid and not the product of fraud or undue influence. If the will was 18 years old, then it probably was not the product of fraud or undue influence. However, to be absolutely certain, I would have the will reviewed by a probate attorney who practices in the county/state where the will is probated. I would find out what your father owned at the time of his death and how it was titled and discuss with the attorney whether there are any potential grounds for a will caveat and the cost. If there are few assets in the estate, then it may not justify the expense of a caveat proceeding.

Another thing - from your post it sounds like you were not very close with your father. Otherwise, you would have known when he died. If that is the case, then it should come as no surprise that everything is left to the stepmother. And there is no more reading of the will in most cases except in Hollywood movies. The stepmother was not obligated to invite you over to hear what is in the will. Depending on where the will is probated, you may have to be notified that application has been made for probate so that you could file a potential caveat if you are not a beneficiary under the will.

Finally, you ask about insurance policies . There is no registry for this for which I am aware and there is no right to compel disclosure of the policies unless you are a beneficiary thereunder or you file a lawsuit. Depending on how the power of attorney was drafted, it does not give the agent (here the stepmother) the power to make changes to the beneficiary unless this was expressed in the power of attorney. You need to see what the power of attorney said in this regard. If you know the issuer of the policies, you could try calling and seeing if the insurance company will release any details, but my guess is that they will only release information to the named beneficiary or the personal representative of your father's estate.

Again, if your father made a will 18 years ago and left everything to your stepmother, what makes you think that he would have made you the beneficiary of his life insurance rather than your stepmother, especially as it seems you were not especially close? What evidence do you have to suggest that you or siblings were beneficiaries up until the time that your father lost his mental capacity and your stepmother took over the management of his affairs and what makes you think that she deliberately changed the beneficiary?

Unless you have something more than suspicion or what you were told, then you have nothing and that is really no basis for a lawsuit alleging fraud/undue influence. I know this seems harsh and is equivalent to a slap in the face, but there is no right of children to inherit from a parent. There are obviously family dynamics here where the stepmother and the children of the first marriage did not get along. That does not necessarily mean that the stepmother schemed to get it all. It was your father's property for him to disburse as he chose. If he chose to benefit his wife of 18 years over the children from his first marriage then that was his choice to make.

On the other hand, if you do have something more concrete which would establish possible fraud/undue influence, then this needs to be discussed with a probate litigation attorney. In the case of insurance policies, if there was fraud/undue influence, then a lawsuit would be brought against your stepmother and you and your siblings would seek to impose a constructive trust over the proceeds if she still has the money.