Q: My father & mother owned our family home. My father remarried after my mother’s death. Dad has told me and my cousin on
Separate occasions that I would inherit the house and that he had a will. He also said he wanted my stepmother to live there until she dies. My dad passed away November 8, 2019. Now my stepmother says she can’t find the will. What should I do? Should I open probate or wait for her to die before I do anything? My son ran a title search and it is totally in my dad's name. The house was paid off until 2002 when he took out a new mortgage. It was suppose to have been paid off August 2018 but that's about the time dad started going down. There is still 11,000 owed.
A: Wills do tend to "disappear" when the person in possession of it doesn't like what it says, but the person in possession does have a legal obligation to turn it over to the probate court. If you have ANY evidence that there was a will (a copy, someone who witnessed it being signed), you can petition the court to order the person in possession to turn it over.
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