Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Texas

Re: Independent executor without will

The widow probably has a claim to a life estate in 1/3 of any separate real estate. If you need to hire an attorney to protect your interests in the estate, then the attorney fees may end up coming out of the entire estate, or you may have to pay them out of your own pocket.

You are right to ask whether fighting this will be cost-effective. You will have to figure that out for yourself. A court appointed administrator has to file an inventory listing all assets of the estate, as well as their values, so this document may help you make that decision, if it has been filed yet.

Your first step is to go to the court that is handling the estate and get copies of all of the documents on file for the case. This is how you (or your lawyer) will figure out what is going on and what the next appropriate step is.

If there is no will, then there is no danger of you losing an inheritance if you contest what is going on. The only danger is that your attorney fees might come out of the estate, and this could bankrupt the estate if it is small enough and the fees are large enough.

Property owned before marriage is separate property, unless your father gave it to his wife. She may have some claim that the community estate added value to the separate property somehow.

If you think that the potential benefit outweighs the likely costs of hiring an attorney, and you can afford to pay the fees in case you lose, then you should hire your own counsel immediately. The longer you wait, the closer it gets to the statute of limitations, and the more time the people with power over the assets have to do whatever they want.