Posted: Monday, 25 November 2019 @ 16:59
Some probate disputes that I deal with do have an air of inevitability about them. It is not going to be pretty and that is the long and short of it.
And in particular if the executor has been behaving with fraud, tardiness and/or incompetence the executor is vulnerable to some form of legal action, which the executor is likely to lose.
One method which a beneficiary can take is to ask for an inventory and account of the deceased's estate.
Another is to force an executor to sell the deceased's property and for the applicant(beneficiary) to take control of that process.
At what point in time is the legal action appealing?
Bear in mind that the executor has one year from date of death to distribute the estate. It is a big step to take legal action of this sort but if has been two years from date of death this action is well in the running and potentially justified.
The action of forcing an executor to sell the deceased's home has particular use if the executor has a fundamental problem in selling the home for whatever reason and rather than going for removal of executor represents a half way house.
The way I see it if you succeed and sell the house and the executor still does not play ball you can go for removal later on the basis that the Executor has lost all credibility.
Momentum is a critical(and underappreciated dynamic) in litigation.