Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in North Carolina

No. I don't understand how your father can "take your mother's name off" of these properties. It does not work that way in NC. Any lawyer drafting a deed of conveyance conveying land from your parents jointly to a trust is going to require BOTH parents to sign. Unless there was fraud of some kind, your mother would have had to be a willing signatory.

So, I would start with getting a copy of the deeds to these properties. If the land is in North Carolina, most of the register of deeds are online and you can look up property ownership in the land records. If you cannot locate it (it can be tricky), then pay a visit to the register of deeds' office in the county where the land is located and see what the deed says. Who are the grantors? The trust should be the grantee.

It would be kind of odd for only your father to have a revocable living trust and not name any beneficiaries other than one child. Are you sure that the trust says that the trustee can only manage the property and when the grantor/settlor (your father) dies, it all goes to one child?

I guess your father can do that if he wants, assuming he is mentally competent. However, if the trust is revocable it means it can be changed up till the time he dies, assuming he is mentally competent. The estate laws have changed a lot since 1993. I suggest your father might want to go see an estate planning attorney and see about amending this trust. Especially if he made no provision in there for his wife of 62 years.

This all assumes that your mother was a willing participant in conveying the land. If your mother was a co-owner of the land and there was fraud or forgery involved, then she needs to go see a real estate litigation lawyer because it may be that the conveyance of the land was invalid. I would not worry so much about her doing a will as I would about trying to get these deeds challenged.

I would get copies of all the deeds and the trust and have these reviewed first by an estate/trust lawyer to see what it says. Then, depending on the information you get, either have the lawyer amend the trust or, if there was some kind of forgery/fraud, see if the deeds can be challenged.