The Expert Podcast

One of the most common questions we get is being able to search for a beneficial trust or also search for a will when a person is a member of a family and somebody is deceased in that family. You may have an interest in finding out if you have any beneficial assets coming to you, whether it's bank accounts, real estate, vehicles, corporate assets, or any other type of beneficiary items that rightfully belong to you.

Many times, there's a suspicion that other members of the family may be improperly diverting assets away from what is rightfully yours to benefit themselves or others. If that's the case, part of the process to discover that and to defeat that is to identify and document the proper assignment of those assets. These could be held in a trust, part of a will, or part of a probate. Searching for those original documents is extremely important because any assets or items that are given to the wrong person or distributed improperly can be considered what's called a fraudulent conveyance.

Sometimes, this is done accidentally. Maybe the trustee or the executor of the estate wasn't really clear on exactly how to distribute the assets. Sometimes, it's done intentionally, where somebody wants more than their fair share. If you have a suspicion that in your family there may have been improper distributions of assets, whether they're bank accounts or hidden assets as part of a family law case or a probate case, we consider that probate fraud. It's a fraud upon their own family—people stealing from their own family.

Discovering those documents is extremely important as part of the investigation. Finding out where they may be registered, domiciled, stored, or cross-referenced with other records can help reveal the true interests of the person who's deceased. They don't even have to be deceased. It could be somebody who is in long-term care, maybe they have conservatorship, or are in some other type of supervisory situation, such as medical care. You want to make sure that nobody in your family or even an executor is improperly diverting assets that belong to you or other members of your family.

If you like this video, be sure to click on a few others on our channel to see if there's more information that might be helpful to you about this same subject, or maybe even other related subjects that could assist you with your resolution of your issue.

In the meantime, remember you have access to live one-on-one consultation and the undivided attention of a licensed, certified expert in this subject and many others. We want to listen to your story, hear your questions, and give you expert advisement on your options. Now, back to your video!