My brother took care of our elderly step-grandfather. He passed away last week. Before he died my brother had to put him in a nursing home because he kept falling. My brother had guardianship. Apparently guardianship expires after a certain length of time. Our cousin got guardianship, went out to the step-fathers house, My cousin get guardianship and went to step-grandfathers house, My brother lived there also. They went into the house without permission from my brother. They took all his paperwork, He was his payee of our step-grandfather. The neighbor had a key and let the cousin into the house. Then he gets served with a paper from the police giving him 24hrs to get out of the house. They stole the will . My brother was left the house. He was in the nursing home less than a month. He passed away and now the lawyer that has written up the will hasn't had my brother in for the reading. I think the lawyer is going to try to cheat him out of the house. Any advice would be greatly apperciated. My brother gave up his own home to take care of step-grandfather.
Why this is important - if your worried about lawyer being evil - is that there is no reason why your brother or you or whomever has paid for anything for the step grandfather cannot file their own claim against the estate. It is a debt of the estate. So if say you paid for yard work that totaled $ 500 last year & were not reimbursed, then you fill out a form to place a claim for that $ 500 (you want to have documentation to establish validity but usually do not have to include it in the initial filing at probate court only need it when hearing happen) against the estate. What is good about this is that the court will usually notify anyone who files a claim as to hearings scheduled for probate court OR if not they give you the docket # so you can go on-line to see when they happen. Then you make sure you get yourself to court that day. This will really cut down on any hanky-panky from happening. Often family get upset as they feel they didn;t get their due but didn't file anything to make this happen. Probate - I think - is all open court too so you can be there and then for a small fee pay for all court documents.
They're not all excited to get involved in something sneaky, either.
In our state there is Informal Probabte, which is not directly supervised, however if there are claim (s) against estate of a serious nature, it must go.thru regular (Formal) Probate. a lawyer is recommended for Formal Probate.
Also, find out your state's inheritancy chart--I think stepchildren are in line before nieces.