Eustis, FL Estate Planning Law Firms & Lawyers

State statute requires that a will be filed with the clerk of the court in the county where the decedent resided. Failure to file is a felony. Once filed the will would then be public information for all to view. As an interested person you can open an estate thereby forcing the production of the will. If a probate estate is opened, the heirship of the decedent must be proved. As a child of a deceased daughter of the decedent you would be an heir but that does not mean you would receive any legacy under the will. The terms of the will determines the legatees in a probate estate. If the legacy to your mother depended on her being alive at the death of your grandmother then your mother's descendants would not take her share. If, however, the legacy to your mother was per stripes, where the share of a deceased child is divided among the descendants of the deceased child then you would be a legatee.

Dear Ms. Foster, Estate planning attorneys normally charge anywhere from $1,000 to $3,500, depending on what you'd like them to do.  For instance, our office handles advance directives/living wills, guardianships, trusts, various powers of attorney, and conservatorships, just to name a few.   It sounds like your mother needs a simple estate plan, but it would be best if she reaches out to an attorney who will make sure her affairs are in order. Reach out if there is anything else I can do for you. Warm regards, Paul Cain, Esq. a.paul.cain@riseuplegal.com 904-877-1010

To settle an estate outside of probate, the property value has to be under $15,000. Otherwise, probate is required but can be unsupervised/informal so long as heirs aren't disagreeing. A qualified probate attorney can probably have such a probate done within about six months.