DH’s father died December 2018. The estate was settled this week. 2 1/2 years it took. It is true that Covid slowed down much of the action, but a recalcitrant sibling slowed things down quite a bit and took the estate to court to get things to be “fair”. So when this sibling won the big challenge in court, that actually meant that DH got more money. A victory of sorts.
The sibling ended up with about $1700 more than if there had been no court action. Attorney fees would’ve been more than that so I cannot see this as a “win”. The sibling was operating as though my father-in-law intended to distribute everything evenly among all of his children, and those carrying out the estate thwarted his wishes.
But here’s the big secret—the old man had a second will. The second will did not distribute things evenly at all.The second will would have damaged the angry sibling as it left most of the siblings with less and it favored one child. The challenging sibling has no idea about this 2nd will simply because this person didnt bother to attend family meetings, help clean out the house, etc.
The Second will was never executed. The old man’s attorney knew about it Since he wrote the preliminary document, but the attorney said the 2nd will was never finalized.
So here’s the angry sibling dancing around trying to make everything fair because that’s what daddy wanted. Only daddy didn’t really want that, necessarily. It is theorized that their father had too much dementia at the end to finish the second will that favored one child over the others.