PILOT SPIN
Spin Zone => Spin Zone => Topic started by: Rush on November 17, 2024, 07:31:18 AM
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What is you guys’ experience? The question is: Who keeps the original of your or your loved one’s Will?
This was an issue with both my husband’s and my mother’s Will. When they died, we needed to find the original to file with the probate court. Okay they’re old and demented so we should have already known where the Wills were, and we indeed had something in the file cabinet, but didn’t pay attention to whether they were originals or copies.
Like an idiot, when my mom died, it didn’t occur to me to look in the file cabinet before we flew up for the funeral. I met with the lawyer and he asked me if I brought mom’s 2016 Will, because he thought I had the original. I told him I would have to fly back to Texas and look in the file cabinet to see if what I had was the original or a copy. He said if I can’t find it, he will use the 2009 Will, because he had that original.
So then I said:
1. If you have the 2009 original, why don’t you have the 2016 original?
2. The 2016 is an update; we don’t want to use the 2009, it’s not her latest Will. If we can’t find the 2016 original, won’t a copy do? He said no, it has to be the original and the update doesn’t matter because the heirs are all the same.
Even more stupid, ever since Covid all the filings with the probate court need to be online so he uploads a scanned copy anyway, but apparently he, the lawyer, has to affirm that he is in possession of the original.
I flew home, found that the will in my files was indeed the 2016 original so I FedExed it back to the lawyer.
So when my husband’s mother dies, same deal; we have something in the file cabinet, but it turns out it’s not the original. So he contacts the lawyer and asks if they have it. They say no. Husband’s sister doesn’t have it, she had cleaned out their mom’s apartment when she went into the facility, so apparently didn’t find it.
Then, I find in our file cabinet, an old letter from his mom’s lawyer saying “Here’s a copy of your mother’s Will, we have the original in our safe.” So hubby scans the letter and emails it to the lawyer and the lawyer says well we don’t have it, and here’s a letter saying we sent the original to you. But that letter predated the one we had. It was referring to an older version. So hubby had to tell them to look at the dates on the letters. And they’re like, “Well sorry, we don’t have it. We moved offices since then and the lawyer who handled your mother’s stuff retired and we are too fucking incompetent to have kept track of his shit when we took over his clients.”
So they had his mom’s updated Will and lost it. Now his mom has died intestate because the court will not accept a photocopy. Fortunately it shouldn’t make any difference because everything goes to my husband and his sister either way, but that could have been a disaster if his mother had wanted something different.
The moral of the story: I had no idea there could only be one original and probate courts will not accept a copy. Apparently it’s not acceptable to sign and create two “originals” so you can have a backup somewhere safe. So you need to know where your original is, and if you lose it, go make another one. And keep up with where the hell it is, and whether what you have is an original or a copy because you’re gonna frickin forget over the years.