More probate problems

[Meowmee]

Our lawyer handling our probate now wants more money to write a deed that we discussed when we hired him as being part of the package. Finally the probate is done by the court and he wants to mail the letters to me. I’m not sure if that is safe. He said he was going to do the deed and then I would come and pick up the deed and the letters. I thought that would take him a couple of weeks. I am currently recovering from a fracture so I am supposed to limit activity.

What should we do here? This has been a long and terrible experience. We already paid him a small fortune for the whole thing and there is still another probate in another country to do. I guess he’s going to charge more for that too. I don’t know if it would be cheaper just to pay him to do the deed etc. or hire someone else. He basically said to me do I want him to do the deed when he called me a couple of days ago. I said yes that was part of the agreement. I remember in the contract it said it could be more for other things that needed to be done but we had already discussed doing that and he didn’t tell me at the time that the deed was going to be extra.

Will it be more expensive to hire another lawyer to do a deed and help with the rest of the probate or should we just do it with him? I am really ready for a looney bin after all of this it has been one problem after another. Before you die please make sure that you have a living trust to transfer everything you want to transfer so whoever is inheriting will not have to go through the nightmare that I have lived through with all of this in addition to the nightmare of the murder of my father. He was trying to do that before he died for part of the estate but he was too ill - it should’ve been done long ago. I remember after my friend/ neighbor died talking to her son after the funeral, and he said she took care of all of that 20 years ago so they didn’t have to do any of this.

[rsdsharp]

1. I'm sorry you're going through this. In my state probate fees are limited

by statute to a percentage of the estate for both the estate attorney and the executor (6% of the first $500, 4% of the next $1500, and 2% of the remainder). They have to be approved by the court, and are paid at, or near the end, of the process.

[Meowmee]

2. Ty

The probate fee is limited by the estate amount here as well but we had to pay him money to do the entire thing, a huge amount for us, The lawyers fee is not limited, but it’s supposed to go by a contract I should’ve made him write in the contract that this includes writing a new deed, he agreed verbally to a transfer deed and he’s now trying to charge me more for that. I probably have no choice because it’s probably going to be more expensive to hire another lawyer to do all of this.

[rsdsharp]

3. You might check with the bar association. Filing a complaint might change his mind.

[Meowmee]

5. Ty

I already contacted the Bar Association when he ignored me for about four or five months when I kept asking when am I supposed to drop the will off at the court.

They told me I should ask him for the money back then but we decided that because we had to get this done as soon as possible in order to have a wrongful death lawsuit we had to just go ahead with him and my brother finally got in contact with him.

His explanation was his wife was ill. But that’s no excuse for ignoring me for four or five months. And then he tried to lie about that later saying that he didn’t know what was going on in the will had not been dropped off at the court and that it was my fault. He had told me he was not going to charge a filing fee for the probate until it was filed but he had charged that fee on my credit card and I noticed it so he lied about all of that too. Because nothing was filed until this past September I believe. There have been a few other fiasco‘s and in the end he has messed up my chance probably to have any type of suit now because it’s too late to sue the hospital which was the main target.

Ultimately it’s my fault because I hired him. it’s almost impossible to get a hold of anybody at the local Bar Association but I guess I will try again, and ask them. I do still have some low-cost or free legal advice through my job I think- I used that once years ago. I think if I did make a complaint now at this point he will just terminate the whole relationship, and try to blame it on me.

[rsdsharp]

7. A formal complaint triggers an investigation. He will be required to answer questions.

In my state, failure to respond will get you suspended. So will ignoring client contacts, and deadlines. If there was a suit against an entity where he allowed the statue to run, that could well constitute malpractice.

[Meowmee]

8. Yes I know

He replied back to me, and said that that was never part of the agreement that he would write the deed as well.. I can’t find the contract right now but I’m trying to find that- I have it stuffed away somewhere, and I have it scanned on my computer but it’s not coming up in my file folders.

But I do clearly recall, when I first talked to him about all of it, telling him that we would want a deed, and how we wanted it to be done, and he never said that was going to cost more. But he just wrote me an email or a text, and said no that was never part of the agreement- the fee was just for the probate, and then he said the filing fee was charged when they thought that it was going to be filed or something…while I have email proof of all of this as to what really happened - that he told me when he filed it, then he would charge the fee, and tell me to drop off the will. That is not what happened- what happened was I kept contacting him to say when do I have to drop the will off, and then he charged the filing fee to my card without ever filing anything. And ignored me and my brother for 3-4 months.

I just can’t take this anymore… I’m not feeling well... I’m really not in a good state, and I have a spinal fracture now on top of everything else…I’m supposed to be resting.

[Prairie_Seagull]

4. Maybe you could find a pro-bono lawer to ask these questions of.

Veterans and others can usually find or at least be advised on some legal matters. My dad would say you are in a sticky wicket. Good luck.

[Meowmee]

6. Thanks

We are not veterans but I think I do have some access to low-cost legal advice at my job. I was going through a lot of papers early this morning and I found something new about that. The problem is I am injured now with a spinal injury, and I can’t do very much. I may also just be able to ask the local Bar Association if I can get anyone to respond to me there… it is not easy. Sticky wicket is exactly right.