Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Ohio
How can we get our family heirlooms?
My father recently died and we discovered a will dated 1979. In it, he left half of his estate to his wife (not our mother, they had no children) and half to his children. He designed his wife as the administrator for the minor children, which we are no longer. There is very little in the estate, he recently quitclaimed the house to her even though he had dementia. All we really want are our grandmother's things, which his wife refuses to give us. Also, we had him buried in a plot he purchased because she threatened to sell the plot and told the crematorium to throw his ashes in ''the trash.'' We'd like to recover the burial expenses. If we force the will into probate, the lawyer says she will ''elect against the will'' which he says leaves nothing left for us. Is this worth pursuing legally? What can we expect?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: How can we get our family heirlooms?
If your deceased father's surviving spouse elects aginst his will, she may end up with only one third of the estate instead of the one half left to her in the will, depending upon what Ohio's elective share laws allow for in situations where there are apparently also two surviving offspring of the decedent(not biologically related to the surviving spouse) as in this case(you and your sibling). Assuming Ohio is the state where your father died, you should check with an attorney in that jurisdiction who is appropriately knowledgeable in Ohio probate law in order to clarify this issue of the elective share that your step-mother would likely be entitled to under
the circumstances which you've outlined in your question.
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