My nephew died Intestate. His wife filed for informal probate & lied many times on the application. What can be done?

Question

They never shared a marital home he lived with my mother the entire time. She chose to live with her ex-husband and their two youngest children.  Unfortunately, my nephew died in the hospital not because of the treatment the doctors were giving him, but because of his lifestyle the treatments weren’t enough.  She used a code on the probate file that shows his estate to be worth over $24,000. My nephew died with nothing. This woman and her attorney are money hungry and obviously want to sue the hospital and the insurance company of the gentleman that accidentally hit him. However, neither should be liable. Our family doesn’t want anyone sued. His wife was remarried a month after his funeral, which our family paid for. She spared no penny of hers and to this day my nephew has no head stone. She never cared about him and she’s trying to get rich off of his death. I can prove she lied on several questions of the informal probate  form. Is there something I can do to stop her?

Trent Harris · Answer

Certain people have the right to participate in probate court proceedings for a decedent estate. These people are called "interested persons" as defined by Michigan law. For example, a deceased person's spouse is an interested person. If the deceased person had any surviving children, then they would also be interested persons. 
 
Assuming an interested person has a problem with what the spouse is doing and wants to expend the time, money, and aggravation pursuing it, an interested person could file a petition in Probate Court to ask for supervision of the personal representative, for example.  
 
You should schedule an in-person consult with an experienced probate attorney in your area, so you can determine whether you (or someone else on your side) qualifies as an interested person in the estate, and then to see if your claims have merit. No one commenting on the internet can tell you one way or the other whether your claims have merit, since to form an opinion about that, a lot of information needs to be found out that isn't in your question. Make an appointment to meet with a local probate attorney and take any documents you have so they can be reviewed, if you want to get answers.

Q: My nephew died Intestate. His wife filed for informal probate & lied many times on the application. What can be done?