Tahoe Vista, CA Estate Planning Law Firms & Lawyers

Tricky question. What is SUPPOSED to happen is the Will gets filed with the probate court in your county. This is supposed to happen whether a probate estate needs to be opened or not. Once filed, it is part of the public record and the kids could presumably see it. If probate IS necessary, then they are absolutely entitled to see the Will. Your summary is not clear on this issue. If there are assets in your husband's name alone, with no beneficiaries named, then some form of probate may be needed. What is the concern with them seeing the Will? If it will make things easier for you, why not simply show it to them? It could make potential problems go away, if the Will says everything goes to you, anyway. Otherwise, it makes it *look* like you have something to hide, even if that is not the case.

You need to go into the probate case and get an order requiring her to give you and your siblings your belongings. Talk with the probate attorney about it.

If you can prove that a will was signed and lost it is possible to have a copy of a will admitted into probate. The facts you recite do not seem to support this. Without a will the statute on descent and distribution controls the situation. Any property owned jointly by the deceased husband and wife would be the sole property of the surviving joint tenant. Thus the wife's estate holds all such property. Property owned outright by the husband should have been distributed half to the wife and half divide evenly among the husband's children at the time of his death. Such property could be distributed now if the proper proof of ownership can be established. Since the wife did not have children of her own, born to or adopted by her, her assets would be distributed to her parents, if they are deceased then divided evenly among her siblings, with the descendants of a predeceased sibling dividing the share that would have gone to the predeceased sibling if alive. A probate estate would be opened and one of the heirs of the wife appointed as administrator.