The wife died in March 2023. The husbands will had not been probated because she was just trying to continue her life the same as it was before he died. The step daughter had helped make sure her father was buried and we all believed she had helped her do whatever the will had instructed. The day of her funeral the step daughter came with her brother to the funeral home and told me "sorry for your loss, but me and Roy get the house", I had just found the wills that morning after looking for them for 3 days. They were not where the wife said the important papers would be. She was named as the husband's personal rep if the wife was unable to perform her duties in the will. She demanded her father's will and said she only wanted to do what he wanted. She said that the mother's estate would be probated after she filed probate on her father's will. We waited to file probate on the mother's will expecting that the court would want to process them together. They were written to compliment each other using identical terms and the only difference was that the husband had purchased the home with a VA load a few years before they were married and never put it in her name because he was previously divorced from the daughter's mother and she had taken him for everything and he ended up being a single father to three kids, 1 that was adopted from his ex's previous marriage. When the daughter filed to be personal rep she also requested the court award her and her brother the real estate because that is what her father had wanted and the will was unclear what was to be done with the real estate. She also failed to include the mother's three children as heirs in her father's will even though they were specifically name and defined as descendants in his will. This prevented them from objecting quickly to her request since they were not made aware of what was happening and did not have the financial resources to file with the court. So my wife, the eldest of the 3 and the named personal rep of the mother, had to quickly file with the court to be recognized in order to object. We had a difficult time finding an attorney that we could afford to take the case on a short notice, but located one 160 miles from our home so I, a 69 year old retired person at the time, drove there, took him the will and explained the situation, engaged him and drove back home by myself, because my wife is unable to make a trip like that for health reasons, to retain him. Our only goal was to be able to explain to the court our interpretation of the will and give our side of the story. The mother's estate, without the real estate, was made up of tangible personal property that if sold might be worth $25,000. The court finally approved my wife as personal rep for the mother in June and we filed the objection. We waited until October for the hearing date and because it was still covid time it was a remote call and we could listen to the proceeding, but were not involved directly. The daughter asked to have the hearing delayed because she had just retained a new group of attorney's for the hearing and they needed time to get up to speed. The court offered a date in November, but they asked for one in February. The mother's attorney did not object. We waited for the hearing date in February while the daughter pursued have her step brother (the youngest of the mother's 3 children) evicted from the property. He had lived in a 5th wheel on the property with his wife for 3.5 years after the fathers passing to help his mother. She used estate resources to pay for the attorneys to do that. She physically forced him off the property by court order a few days before the hearing, in a snow storm. The court hearing was again supposed to be a call in hearing that we could listen to, with no testimony, just the attorneys and the judge. The night before the hearing the mother's attorney contacted us and said the daughter would be in the courtroom to testify, but she was only testifying to her father's wishes which were hearsay. We had already waited almost a year and we were supposedly allowed to testify via a online system so the attorney did not object. The hearing was started and we logged in on a pc. We tested our connections and everything appeared OK. We listened to the testimony, but was unable to confer with the attorney, because he also was on a dial up connection and we had no connection to him. The judge listened to the daughter and son's story and when it came time for my wife to be sworn in we had audio difficulties and the judge complained she could not understand what she said. We tried to find the difficulty, but could only slightly make it better. She was sworn in and the only question the attorney asked her was "did the step father talk to her about the will?" and he knew the answer was "No". No other opportunity was given for either of us to speak to the court. The judge asked the attorneys (including the mother's attorney) if they agreed that the will had not specified what was to be done with the real estate and they all agreed that had not. That was not our position, the will had specified that on her death the residue of the estate would be give to the mother's estate. They insisted that no 'remainderman' had been specified and that the real estate was not "residue". The discussed it further and the daughter's attorneys offered that if the wife had remarried the property would have been sold and 50% would go to the 2 natural children and 50% would go to the wife. The court ruled that way on the spot. We could not afford to object again and did not want to further waste the estate assets. The court then gave the daughter control of the property. The daughter gave us 30 days to remove the personal affects from the property. I rented a moving truck and drove the 260 miles with my son to try and get as much as we could into a 16 ft truck and bring it down to our home. When we got to the house the locks had all been changed and we could not even get into the house. I called the sheriff and explained the situation. He told me I could break in and I would not be prosecuted for 'breaking and entering', but I could be held liable for any damage to the house. We went in through a window without causing any damage. My wife's aunt was given what we couldn't get out to donate to the church and have a yard sale. The daughter and brother then had dumpsters brought in and hauled what was left to the dump. The cleanup took them 90 days and they put the house on the marked and it sold in July. They charged the estate over $3,000 for the cleanup and she paid the brother $800 for helping. We did not object to her final accounting even though it appeared that she planned to use the husband's death date as the basis date for FMV I believed it was an IRS rule and when she actually got a tax accountant it would be corrected. It wasn't and corrected and when my wife talked to the mother's attorney he did not pursue it saying there was some extenuating circumstances. I filled out the taxes for the mother's final taxes and they were filed on time. The return was sent to the family home, but we never saw it. I had to request a new check again and it was not delivered to us before I could actually get to 'talk' to someone from the IRS. The return was for $111. My wife received a 1041 last week showing over $100,000 capital gains for the mother's share of the estate ($278,000). I have a degree in accounting, but I have no idea how this should be handled since it has been 2 years since the mother passed and her final taxes have already been filed and the 1041 is for this tax year. By the way since the court altered the expected flow of the residue (it was supposed to be divided in 5 equal shares for the 5 children) the attorney recommends giving the step children their share too. This means that the step children end up with at least 35% of the estate each while the wife's children get 10%. I thought that probate was meant to make sure the deceased wishes were met. There a still other pieces to this story, but it has been long enough to address these final problems. The husband told me after the wills were made "don't worry, it is fair. It will only require that the two sisters work together" ......
