In Washington state, what can beneficiaries of a will do if the executor does not notify them? My aunt died six months ago. She was married and without children. In hospice care she said she had left things behind for her brothers and sisters in her will. Also during this time, her surviving husband - and executor of her will - said he doesn't want anything to do with her side of the family after her death. It has been six months since her death and no beneficiaries on her side of the family have been contacted about her will. A call to the King county supreme court showed no records of her will, so it was never filed with the court. They did show that their house was put into a trust in 2017, when they got her terminal cancer diagnosis. I'm assuming that they planned their estate so as to avoid probate. We believe it's possible the husband is simply choosing to not notify the beneficiaries of the will since there is bad blood between him and the aforementioned. What would be the best course of action now? It has been six months with no communication from him or his estate lawyer, and no will has been filed with the court. Since it's not entering probate, is there any guarantee that he has to faithfully execute the conditions of the will at all or notify any of the beneficiaries? Without probate, can he simply choose to not execute the will?
What would be the best course of action now? It has been six months with no communication from him or his estate lawyer, and no will has been filed with the court. Since it's not entering probate, is there any guarantee that he has to faithfully execute the conditions of the will at all or notify any of the beneficiaries? Without probate, can he simply choose to not execute the will? A will has no effect or validity until it is admitted to probate. You can't do anything with a will outside a probate proceeding. Usually state law requires that a will that is in someone's possession be lodged with the court, whether or not they plan on opening up a probate estate, but this requirement is widely ignored. Unlike a will, a trust can be administered without court supervision, without being admitted to probate, although usually, the trust is required to file a notice of its existence with the court if it has become irrevocable (a requirement that is also widely ignored). The trustee of a trust has a fiduciary duty to administer the trust in accordance with its terms and to keep the beneficiaries of the trust reasonably informed about it. Again, sometimes the notice to the beneficiaries is overlooked. Also, it wouldn't be unusual for someone to inaccurately say that a will provided that a certain thing happen, when, in fact, that was a provision in a trust. People are sloppy in ordinary conversation about the distinctions between wills and trusts. If a trust was drafted to avoid probate, the will is probably just a "pour over will" which states that if there is any property that is not in the trust as her death that it is hereby transferred to the trust. Normally, a person would not have both a trust designed to avoid probate and a will with substantive provisions at the same time. If you suspect that you know who the trustee is, the first step would be to write a formal letter that you can prove was sent and received (e.g. via certified mail or FedEx), asking if there is a trust, and if there is one, if you are a beneficiary of that trust, and asking for the trust agreement (or at least the parts of it pertinent to you status as beneficiary). If the person that you suspect is trustee is a trustee, he has a legal duty to let you know these things (which doesn't mean that he necessarily will do so). If you fail to receive cooperation or a response after this initial inquiry, you may need to hire counsel to attempt to obtain this information through the courts.
One place to look is the incest statute, 18-6602, which says: Persons being within the degrees of consanguinity within which marriages are declared by law to be incestuous and void, who intermarry with each other, or who commit fornication or adultery with each other, are punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for a term not to exceed life. The relevant statute pertaining to consanguinity and marriage (32.205) states: Marriages between parents and children, ancestors and descendants of every degree, and between brothers and sisters of the half (1/2) as well as the whole blood, and between uncles and nieces, or aunts and nephews, are incestuous, and void from the beginning, whether the relationship is legitimate or illegitimate. A literal reading of the law with attention to the bold part tells you that the prohibition of marriage between brothers and sisters of full or half blood does not preclude marriage between blood-unrelated sibling. It does, however, not grant the same right to aunts and nephews etc. (including those by adoption), which could engender competing claims about legislative intent. It would then be relevant to look at the Washington analog of this statute, RCW 26.04.020, which prohibits marriage: (1)(b) When the spouses are nearer of kin to each other than second cousins, whether of the whole or half blood computing by the rules of the civil law. (2) It is unlawful for any person to marry his or her sibling, child, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, or nephew. Here, the blood-relation rule applies to (second) cousins and is absolute for aunts and sibling. It would seem that various legislatures had different intents, in forming these statutes. In Oregon, ORS 106.020 prohibits marriage When the parties thereto are first cousins or any nearer of kin to each other, whether of the whole or half blood, whether by blood or adoption, computing by the rules of the civil law, except that when the parties are first cousins by adoption only, the marriage is not prohibited or void In this case, the Oregon law explicitly equates blood and adoption, and then could cast doubt on the concept of "whole or half blood" as actually referring to blood relationship (although, Oregon is not Idaho, or Washington). Given the literal reading of the Idaho statutes (and without there being any clarifying case pertaining to relationship by adoption), it may take a court order to compel the county clerk to obey the law, especially if the clerk is dispensing life choice recommendations. That is especially so if the law is not clearly established. Montana likewise restricts (40-1-401) a marriage between an ancestor and a descendant or between a brother and a sister, whether the relationship is by the half or the whole blood, or between first cousins That statute also says Parties to a marriage prohibited under this section who cohabit after removal of the impediment are lawfully married as of the date of the removal of the impediment. However, there is no obvious way to get legally unadopted, especially when the parties are adults. An additional wrinkle is that in Idaho under 32-209, valid marriages entered into elsewhere are valid in that state unless they violate the public policy of this state. Marriages that violate the public policy of this state include, but are not limited to, same-sex marriages, and marriages entered into under the laws of another state or country with the intent to evade the prohibitions of the marriage laws of this state. But it is established law that same-sex marriages are legal. The bold section is clearly unconstitutional; the question then is whether if you took this to SCOTUS, they would strike down the entire statute (a number of states still have such language on their statute books, e.g. Montana still declares that marriage is between a man and a woman). At any rate, a lawyer is probably mandatory.
If two parties have a contract, where one party is required to do X in exchange for the other party doing Y, then the terms specified in that contract would determine what happens. You would have to see exactly what it says, especially if the other party has the option to not give you money. A contract might say "A shall at his option give B $5,000 by date X; if A elects not to make payment, notice must be given 60 days before X". Failing to give timely notice is thus breech of contract. However if the clause only says "A shall at his option give B $5,000 by date X", then there is no requirement for advance notice. And this assumes that there is a contract whereby both parties have some obligation to the other. A gift, on the other hand, carries no obligations on the giving party. There may be some social code to the effect that they should have told you by now, but failing to give advance notice is at most rude and certainly not legally actionable.
A deed executed during life trumps a will. The other siblings would have to argue: Your mom did not have the capacity to execute the deed (which is a very low standard in terms of her capacity). The deed was procured from undue influence from you (which requires them to meet a high bar of proof). The deed was really the implementation of an agreement for you to hold the property in trust for everyone (which requires some affirmative evidence of this intent).
You need to speak to a lawyer. First of all inheritance laws vary greatly from one location to the next, so you need someone who is familiar with your local laws and processes. You also need to collect all paperwork that's related to the inheritance. Typically an estate need to get "settled" and there is an official statement that (often issued by the town or a local court) that spells out all the details and conditions (if any). Try to document any type of follow up discussion or dispute in as much detail as possible including dates, means of interaction, topics, etc. Once you have all this, have a lawyer or equivalent look it over. They then can assess the legal situation and advice you on the best course of action.
The GDPR has an exemption for purely personal or household activity. Creating a family tree seems purely personal as long as you don't publish it. You're also allowed to freely share the tree as long as it stays within that purely personal scope. Your proposed restriction of only showing data of blood relatives seems excessively strict. But assuming that this exemption wouldn't apply, there'd probably still be no problem. The GDPR does not require you to always obtain consent. It requires that the purposes for which you process personal data are covered by some legal basis. Consent is one such legal basis, but legitimate interest is another. You can likely argue that you have a legitimate interest to create a tree of your (extended) family. The legitimate interest must be weighed against the rights and freedoms of the affected persons. For example, contact information could be used for stalking. The balance of the legitimate interest check can be changed if you adopt suitable safeguards. Your idea of only sharing data with close relatives would be such a safeguard, but it might not be necessary. When you rely on legitimate interest, the affected person can object to further processing, furthermore they can request to be erased from your records. A request for erasure can be denied if there are overriding grounds to keep the data. E.g maybe only contact information has to be deleted but names, dates, and relations might be kept. You should notify persons when they are included into your records. It is your obligation as the data controller to make these decisions. If someone disagrees they can sue you or lodge a complaint with a supervision authority. Note that dead persons are not natural persons in the sense of the GDPR, and have no privacy. However, national laws may provide such protections.
It sort of depends on what the will says, for example if the will says &quot;shall receive 1% of the value of my estate at the moment of my death&quot;, that answers your question. That's a bit unlikely, more probably it just says &quot;shall receive 1% of my estate&quot;, in which case this refers to &quot;the totality of what is left to disburse to beneficiaries&quot;, that is, after obligations have been discharged (debts, taxes, funeral expenses, expense of estate administration). You also have to disburse specific benefits first, for example &quot;$10,000 to Aunt Luddy&quot;, &quot;the car to cousin Billy&quot;. Thereafter, percentages (implied such as &quot;equally&quot; or explicit such as &quot;2%&quot;) are then computed over the remainder. Ideally, you will know the current value of everything left and can do the math and transfer title all at once. This might be a bit impractical for an entire estate, but it is practical for an estate composed of a bunch of divisible assets. All of the securities can be transferred on one day; the house may be sold a month later and assets re-distributed according to the formula at that point. In other words, you don't need a fixed instant for computing and distributing the estate, you just need to distribute each asset according to the terms of the estate.
You may be interested in a recent New York Times article, "The Lonely Death of George Bell", which described in detail the case of a man who was found dead in his apartment (of natural causes). It took a long time for him to be positively identified, and no near relatives could be located. Affairs were handled by a city official called a "public administrator". Bell's valuable possessions were sold at public auction and the funds added to his estate. Items of no significant value were discarded (a junk removal business was hired to clean out his apartment; a few items were kept by the workers). They did eventually find his will, and at least some of his heirs, so his estate went to them. The public administrator had Bell cremated by a local crematorium, with the ashes stored permanently in their columbarium. The cost was paid out of Bell's estate. If he hadn't had any assets, or hadn't been positively identified, the article mentions that he would have been buried in a "potter's field" at the city's expense.