Attorney Won't Produce My Dad's New Will
My dad passed a few months ago and shortly before he went on hospice he had a new will made with an attorney who was friends with my stepmom.
I was physically present when the attorney delivered it to the house and my dad told me and multiple other witnesses what was in the will, as did the attorney herself while I was sitting there. However I never got a copy before his passing because he was trusting that the attorney would give me a copy once he was gone. This turned out to be a big mistake.
What happened instead was she filed a will from 2017 that is more beneficial to my stepmom and has facilitated fraud by changing the deed to a property in the will in opposition of both the old will and the new will. (The new will contained two properties including my childhood home which was the most important that my dad wanted to go to us. The 2017 will does not include that property). Both wills were set up so that the property listed would have life estate that would go to my dad's children upon my step mom's passing. The deeds were set up as tenants in common.
The attorney and my stepmom have since changed both properties so that the deeds are only in her name and now the beneficiary is listed as her son.
My current attorney said we can ask the court to remove my stepmom as a representative of the will and ask the court that the deed be changed back to the way it should be in alignment with the old will. However, he does not believe that we will be able to do anything to force them to produce the new will. And just these two legal actions alone will cost up to $60,000 as I was told.
I'm just feeling sick over all of this and can't believe she was able to do this without consequence. I'm also getting the sense that my attorney may feel like it's not even worth pursuing at all but even at the expense of $60,000 I feel like I have to.
He told me that even though what they have done is fraud no prosecutor will actually hold them accountable for it and that they would want it litigated civilly.
I'm just wondering if there is anything else I can do in these circumstances. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Edit to add: The notary is the attorney's husband so no luck there. I don't know who the witnesses would have been. And there is no financial trail or payment because she was doing this for 'free' because she's friends with my stepmom. Which I now suspect maybe there was a transaction between the two of them to make the new will disappear because I don't see what else could be in it for the attorney otherwise.
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