Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in North Carolina

This has nothing to do with anything.

If sister died with a will it must be filed with the court. If sister has probate assets, then a petition for probate must be filed by the executor. Once the petition is granted and letters testamentary issued, then the executor has to administer the estate - meaning the executor's job is, in a nutshell, to figure out what the deceased owned and owed, pay any just debts and to distribute what is left to the beneficiaries in the will.

Ok so sister died with a will. When? Who was the executor of her estate and why did they not file her will? If no will is filed within 6 months of death, anyone can file it and apply for probate. It sounds like this is something like what happened here in that brother subsequently filed the will. Well and good but are there probate assets and did he apply to probate sister's estate?

Now the rest of your post makes absolutely no sense. If someone dies with a will me filing it with the court does not make the dead person's will my will. Back in the old days before computers and typewriters and people had to travel by horse, husbands and wives used to make what are called joint and mutual wills. It is where the will is basically identical in that each spouse makes one will leaving everything to each other and then their kids or the same beneficiary. If one spouse dies the will is probated and if the surviving spouse does not make a new will then the prior will has to be probated again when the second spouse dies.

With the advent to cars and personal computers it is not a bother to do separate wills and I do not do joint and mutual wills in my practice. However, other than this situation, a will does not become someone else's will merely by filing it. This is the law in all of the states where I am admitted so I don't know where you got this idea from.

So sister's will, if validly executed and signed, is only sister's will regardless of when it is filed. If brother is alive and mentally competent, he needs to make his own will if he has not done so already. Really, there are 2 certainties in life - death and taxes. We are all going to die at some point (just a question of how and when). So we all need a will unless a person has no assets at all held solely in his or her name. Its very hard to live like this but possible. For everyone else, they need a will.