[quote=“chappachula, post:20, topic:631806”]
Why would the OP need the original document? Wouldn’t a 20-year-old Xeroxed copy from your archived files be just as good?(assuming there are no legal challenges, family feuds, disputed issues,etc)
This is common in business but I am not sure if it transfers to a personal level.
A copy isn’t sufficient to obtain a grant of probate unless you can demonstrate that the original has been lost.
I suggest it be called a WillFold. (you know, like a billfold but for wills?)
Look at Granny’s correspondence. There is no way about it. Any lawyer she has been communicating with contact them. Be prepared for stone walling. You will have to prove your bona fides to them.
In my jurisdiction a general power of attorney is revoked on the loss of capacity of the principal - you need to have an attorney appointed under an enduring power of attorney to continue to make personal and/or financial decisions.
Additionally, decisions relating to the making of and revocation of a will are decisions that an attorney cannot make under an enduring power of attorney. A solicitor may possibly be able to confirm that they hold a will (or have acted in the making of a will), but until the principal dies, may not be able to provide a copy.
I’ll track down the contact info of the local bar association down there, and see if they do broadcast emails of that sort. If they do, I’ll hand it over to my wife at that point, since she’s the one with the power of attorney. That would certainly save us dozens of letters and phone calls if they do.
Great suggestion, Muffin!
Whatever the proper wording is, this power of attorney isn’t limited to particular applications (medical decisions are excluded, but practically everything else is there), or limited by circumstance other than grandma’s death, at which point full responsibility would of course reside in the executor named in the will.
Tru dat. No one else can make or unmake your will except for you, and you can only do so while you’re an adult possessed of testamentary capacity.
That’s fine. Really the only thing we’d ask the lawyer to do besides informing us that s/he’s got the will, is to let us know now who the will names as executor, or contact the executor directly to let her/him know that s/he is so named.
That would help us think some of the logistics out ahead of time, because regardless of who is named as executor, it will fall to my wife to do the actual work: there’s no closer relation who is capable. (Which is why she’s the one with the P of A in the first place.)
Do you live in a state where a will must be recorded…or just notarized? That might be the way in.
And as some of the other posts have noted, there is no guarantee that the lawyer has any copy of the will, much less an original. Increasingly, lawyers are shying away from being a repository of important documents for their clients. Our expertise is in drafting legal documents, not in safe-keeping.
I read one article a while ago from a lawyer who felt that to avoid any negligence claims, he had to have a large fire-proof safe to keep clients’ wills safe. He then had to move the safe when they re-located offices, at considerable expense. Finally, he told his clients he was no longer a storage facility, come get their wills, and got rid of his “Iron Maiden.”
When we’ve had wills made, the lawyer did not keep originals. He may have a copy on file, I don’t know.
That’s why the option of filing it with the county or a court is an attractive approach.
I wonder why there isn’t a central register of wills, so that people wouldn’t have to search all over the place.
Of course, it’s a much bigger step from tossing a folder into the outdoor firepit vs. fabricating a whole new, false, backdated and forged document.
Usually, if “there is no will” then the siblings (absent a spouse) get equal shares. Unless he thought he was getting more, or prodigal son was disinherited, what was the point? Of course, one is tempted to comment on someone whose attitude is “I thought I was supposed to get a bigger share than him” but did not know for quite a while daddy was gone. So unless number two son gutted the estate while nobody was looking (a different, not will-related crime) then - that’s life.
My father and my one uncle went ballistic when granny died and they found the other uncle had flipped her houses, low price to himself and then a fortune to strangers. Of course, these were shady but legit transactions based on his power of attorney and grandma’s questionable consent; so no way to undo.
Nothing brings out the old sibling rivalry like an inheritance fight.
Did your wife interact with her grandmother’s attorney in any way when signing the POA, if so that same attorney might very well be the one who prepared her will, as these documents are often included as part of the “package”. If not, then he/she probably has a copy in your grandmother-in-law’s file, and it probably would be easy to ascertain who prepared the will from from there. If this doesn’t work, see if she has any other health care proxy, DNR, or other legal documents that you wife might be able to gain access to, and use that as a starting point to track down the will.
A lot of jurisdictions (including mine) have a voluntary depository for wills for people who want the government to keep their will.
Tradition, expense, potential for error, and nanny state over-involvement come to mind with respect to why there are not compulsory depositories.
Institutions have arisen to meet significant public needs with regard to registration of land, but there are not many significant public needs with regard to registration of wills. If someone could not be arsed to deposit their will, or at least tell the executor and/or family where it is, then tough titty. Rules of intestate succession step in, and the sun still rises in the morning, only with the distribution not being exactly the way the lazy testator wanted it to be.
Setting up a compulsory registration system would be expensive, as Canada learned through it’s failed experiment in compulsory long-gun registration. There would be little public benefit to justify the expense, particularly with there being a voluntary depository available and rules of intestate succession as a one-size-fits-all fallback.
Failure to register otherwise valid wills would lead to no end of problems, particulary given that a great many wills are made by elderly people who are not mobile, and that a great many wills are made without the assistance of legal counsel who could be paid to register the will.
The state is involved in peoples lives in a great many ways, to the degree that many people find it intrusive. Since there is nothing to be benefitted from state invovlement in the conpulsory registering wills if the testator does a proper job of arranging for storage (be it private or in the government archives) of the will and of notifying the executor and/or beneficiaries, many people would look at compulsory will registration as being nothing more than wasted tax dollars that only benefit people too lazy to take care of their own private business.
I only kjeep hard copies of documents if I think I might need them in the future. Otherwise its on the laptop. With a will, I doubt it would be so made. The lawyer who made it is unlikely to ever need to see it again.
No, we had it prepared on our own dime.
Keep good notes on your search for the will, for you might need to prove to the court what you did to find the will when it comes time to appoint a tustee and administer the estate.
That’s an excellent idea. I never thought much about it before, but it seems like that would be a good thing to have. Then there’d be no question about is there a will, is there a newer will etc.
Agree. But you hear all sorts of stories over here, and while they’re always interesting to listen to, I try not to get too involved. If you seem too interested, you often get latched onto as a helper in whatever endeavor, so I don’t know all the details. But also as usual, I suspect there’s something more than meets the eye.
Nor mine. My experience is just like Oakminster’s. In some places you can file the will with the clerk for safekeeping, but even then it isn’t all that common.
I assume that I might need the documents in the future (call me paranoid), so I keep (either on paper or electronically) a copy of the will and keep my solicitor’s notes in the event that either the will will be lost or destroyed, or the capacity of the testator at the time of the making of the will will be contested at a later date. By keeping this information, it not only will help establish the facts in dispute, but it will also help me avoid or fend off claims of negligence.
BTW, for some clients, I keep a video of the execution of the will and the preceeding review and discussion of it, and for some clients I have an independent medical expert certified in capacity assessment provide a certificate. I figure that I am hired to put together a package that gets the job done, not just to prepare a document.
Just out of curiosity, and I understand if you don’t want to answer, but how much do you charge for a will? Around here, the going rate for a simple will is about $200 or less. For that amount, it’s a pretty bare-bones service. The attorney will provide the document drafted according to client’s instructions, the above and aforesaid foldy-thing to store the document in, a notary public and sometimes disinterested witnesses to satisfy the signing requirements, and that’s about it.
I do a very simple capacity assessment. I ask the testator to answer simple questions–who I am, why they have come to see me, what is the date, who is the POTUS, what are their instructions regarding the will, who are their spouse/children, that sort of thing.