Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Pennsylvania
Can a signed estate Receipt, Release, Refunding, and Indemnification agreement ever be invalidated due to dishonesty?
Philadelphia, PA
Some beneficiaries benefits are held in a trust with the stipulation "to distribute any part, all, or none of the net income and principal of the Trust ...etc..". The beneficiary is then asked to sign an R&R to get the check for the amount on the R&R. Problem is that a cheating Executor would then be getting away with cheating. Can the agreement be signed, the check cashed, and then the R&R found invalid due to cheating? And is the estate money considered separate from the money before death? In this case, most of the cheating occurred before death. So can a person sign the R&R, and then still file an illegal Guardianship case? And can they still find the estate settlement faulty? Does the R&R only apply to the time after death?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Instead of posting these meaningless questions here constantly, you were advised to get legal counsel by another attorney. You have not done that. Nobody here has seen whatever the heck you are talking about nor reviewed any other documents and no one can competently answer when you dribble out different facts in every post.
You claim all of this cheating but provide no details which would support same. What does guardianship have to do with anything if a person is dead? Guardianship is over and the fact that you are doing it now after a person is dead tells me that you have no clue as to what you are doing.
Don't sign the receipt and release and object to any final accounting if there is cheating by the executor as alleged. You cannot sign a receipt and release and excuse the executor when you know of alleged misconduct and then come back and in effect say "I did not mean what I signed."
And I don't understand your distinction about estate money and other money. Anything owned by the deceased at the minute of death is governed by the will. Any gifts made by the deceased prior to death is not part of the estate.
If the executor was also an agent under a power of attorney and, while the deceased was alive, misused the power of attorney to make gifts to the agent, then you need to get this person removed as executor, get yourself appointed as personal representative and bring a legal action on behalf of the deceased's estate against the former agent of the estate.
A receipt and release only applies to the administration of an estate and the distribution of assets thereunder. What else would it relate to?
OK how much money is at stake? You apparent don't think it's worth spending dime 1 on an attorney who can review the documents So again how much money is at stake?
The other question I always ask new clients. If I could wave my wand (I want to the Hogwarts School of Law) and granted you everything you wanted what would be the out come. I ask tis question for 2 reasons. To focus the potential client on answer sometimes the toughest question that is what do you want. After that then I can advise whether you have a hope of getting it.
In short if you don't know where you're going how do expect to knpow if you got there?
{John}