Brookfield, GA Estate Planning Law Firms & Lawyers

If you are named as the POD beneficiary on your father's bank account, that account became yours at his death and did not become part of his estate. It's not even your responsibility to use it to pay estate related expenses or expenses related to his death: it's your money, not his. His probate estate assets are supposed to be used to pay for expenses relating to his death, his debts, and similar items. If your father was receiving nursing home Medicaid benefits before his death, there may be some ability for the state to come after the funds from the POD account, under an estate recovery program, because in Georgia the concept of estate recovery is being applied to assets other than strictly probate estate assets. And if he had income tax or other tax liens, then you may have some potential liability to turn over the assets to the tax department. But in general, as stated above, assets from a POD account which came to you under the POD designation are yours, and are not subject to paying estate debts or expenses.  

Not legally. First of all, a power of attorney does not grant the agent the power to change the principal's Will (the principal is the person who granted the power of attorney, and the agent is the person to whom the power of attoney was granted). Second of all, a power of attorney dies with the principal, and is no longer valid after the principal dies.

Please accept my condolences on the loss of your father and the imminent passing of your stepmother. As for your question, your father's Will may still provide for the property that your stepmother was to receive to pass to her even if she passes away before the Will is probated, but you have to read the actual Will to determine exactly what should happen. In many cases, a Will contains a requirement that a beneficiary survive the person who wrote the Will by a minimum period of time in order to become entitled to receive the benefits that the Will provides for that beneficiary. For example, our standard Will form generally requires that a person's spouse survive them by at least 60 days in order to receive benefits under the Will. This is designed in part to avoid a situation where assets pass from one person's estate to a deceased beneficiary's estate. If your father's Will contains that kind of provision, and if your stepmother actually ends up passing away before she meets the minimum survival period, then the property would normally be distributed under your father's Will as if your stepmother died before your father. However, if your father's Will provides for a minimum survival period and your stepmother has already lived at least that long, then the bequest provided by your father's Will for her will likely end up distributed as provided by the Will. This may mean that property is distributed to her estate, if it was to be an outright distribution. However, if your father's Will provided for property to pass to a trust for your stepmother, rather than outright, then the trust will likely end up distributed in whatever manner it was to be distributed at your stepmother's death. To summarize, what your father's Will says happens is what will happen. Find an attorney who deals with probate matters in the state where your father lived when he died, and have that attorney review the Will and help you with the probate. If your stepmother is capable of signing a consent to probate, you may also want to have her do that before she passes away, as otherwise you may not be able to probate your father's Will without the consent of the Executor or Administrator of your stepmother's estate. Best wishes to you.