General

Willy* filed a cease and desist order on each of his sisters, citing spurious reasons to keep them away from his house (and mom). We also alerted the Office of Aging in McKean County of the sad state of affairs. They sent workers to Willy’s house to visit with mom. The local police accompanied the two Office of Aging workers. The police had been called to Willy’s home before. His neighbors had called them when Willy was being less-than-safe with his firearms a few times in the past.

The sisters reported to the Office of Aging that mom had no change […]

We were asked to help administer an estate for a woman who told us she was the only living heir of her father. We thought that it would be a simple intestate estate administration, which means that there is no Last Will & Testament. We began discussing her father’s estate when I learned that the daughter sitting in front of me was not an only child. Her father had another child, a son, who used to live with them, but the son left over two years ago and has not been heard from since.

As we discussed the disappearing son, the […]

We were asked to help administer an estate in which two siblings, who cannot agree whether the sun rises in the east, were the main beneficiaries. The estate was not too large, under a million dollars, and had as many non-probate assets as probate assets. The hope was that we could navigate the waters peacefully.

One of the siblings was the named executor of the Last Will & Testament. The other, non-executor sibling, brought the paperwork to his attorney (not Mateya Law Firm; we were brought in to try to restore the peace) without the executor’s knowledge. Wait, shouldn’t that Attorney […]

A gentleman came in to probate his wife’s estate. This can be a difficult time in anyone’s life, losing a loved one. We discussed the necessary issues of the medical bills, the final arrangements and how the funeral was paid for, all of which were fairly predictable. Then I asked him how long he and his wife had been married.

“We never actually got married. We always said that it was just a piece of paper.”

I then had to break the news to him that his partner’s estate, which all passed to him through her Last Will & Testament, would be […]

A client came into my office last week with her daughter; I’ll call her Mrs. Smith.  Mrs. Smith, who is in her mid seventies, asked if I could help her sort out the trouble she is having with her finances.   She has a trust and several other documents which an attorney and a financial advisor sold to her, but she doesn’t really understand how they work. She said that ‘no one would talk to her’ about her trust without billing her for every moment they spoke with her. She doesn’t want to have her money tied up like that, but she was told […]