Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Pennsylvania

The lawyer for the estate is supposed to represent the estate but in reality he represents the executor who hired him. Most lawyers will not discuss the estate with the beneficiaries, advising them to tak to the executor.

Since there obviously is something going on between you and your father, you will need to get your own probate attorney to intercede for you.

However, IRAs and life insurance proceeds are non-probate assets. They pass outside of probate to the named beneficiary. If you know that you are the named beneficiary and the identity of the administrator of the IRA or insurer, nothing stops you fom contacting them directly.

The problem will be if your grandmother designated her estate or a trust as the beneficiary. In that case, the proceeds will be paid to her estate or trust and then parceled out.

Also, with IRAs, usually taxes have not been deducted for them if they are regular, not Roth, IRAs. You will need to speal to a CPA about rolling the IRA into your own and stretching it out. You don't want to pay all the taxes in most cases at one time, but it depends on how much we are talking about.