My mom passed away in 2019 and left a will. My brother is executor of the estate, and has hijacked everything. He sold every asset and pocketed the money. He filed a motion to close the estate and refused to provide paperwork showing where the money went.
The estate was somehow removed from probate court and is still being argued in circuit Court.
I have been repeatedly denied due process by my brother and his attorney, who have filed multiple things without giving us notice.
My attorney has appealed, argued and fought all the way to the Alabama Supreme Court.
At this point there is nothing left to fight over, I’ve been completely screwed out of any inheritance, and my attorney hasn’t taken nor returned my calls in over a year.
I’ve had no updates, no news and the only reason I even know about the state Supreme Court was through a Google search.
I moved to another state before mom died, so all of this has taken place several hundred miles away.
I’m trying to keep it short, but there are so many other layers to this onion. Any advice would be appreciated.
I’m from Alabama
my brother sold everything, including photo albums that held the only baby pictures that exist of me. Since I was adopted, not many exist to begin with.
He has a wicked gambling addiction, so I’m guessing he’s had the time of his life at the casino.
I hired my lawyer on contingency.
I know this isn’t exactly the same but might shed some light. My Mother died in 2021 leaving house and property to the 6 adult children in a life estate. One of the sisters, who had lived in the house with Mother for some time, refused to agree to sell the property so we could divide/realize our inheritance. One of the brothers sided with her and it was becoming messy. So, I told them I would force a sale under a “partition”, which just one sibling can do and legal fees would be split among everyone (taken from proceeds). Once she realized that was going to happen, she went ahead and agreed to sell.
I’m sorry you’re also going through it. I hired my lawyer on contingency, and I warned him that if he didn’t stay on top of things, my brother would spend everything and there wouldn’t be any money left to pay him with.
I don’t think he listened.
I agree. There does need to be a way to protect beneficiaries. Breaks my heart to hear things like this.
I don’t have any advise. Just wanted to say that people kept telling me that the executors of my parents’ wills (one sister was my mom’s, another was my dad’s) had a fiduciary duty to look out for the beneficiaries and had to follow certain rules, but they have gotten away with so much. We are still waiting for my sister to complete my dad’s estate and it’s been almost a year. When I’ve spoken to lawyers they have told me that I have to give it more time and in the meantime she continues spending the estate money doing unnecessarily things that my dad wouldn’t have wanted done. I could hire a lawyer, but that would come out of my pocket while she could use the lawyer being paid by the estate. There needs to be better ways to protect beneficiaries.
There’s some great areas. My cousin for example charged $100/hr to clean up property and mow the lawn to prepare a house for sale.
you are absolutely correct. However, my brother has somehow gotten away with it and the judge seems to be in his pocket. That is the only thing I can come up with.