The Expert Podcast

Are your relatives stealing money from you and you don't even know it? This is about probate fraud. What that means is that in your family, there will be times when somebody will become deceased—maybe your grandfather, maybe a parent, maybe an uncle. People die, and as a family, there is a proper distribution of the assets of that person. That's usually done through a will, probate, or some other type of process. The problem is that within a family, there's also temptation. It's very easy and seductive to want to try to take some of these assets that don't belong to you.

If your grandfather dies, there may be eight or nine people in that family: sons, daughters, in-laws, spouses, and cousins. All are thinking, "How much money can I get? How much am I going to get in the will?" Some people don't wait for the will, and they just take money that doesn't belong to them. There are dozens of ways this is done, and we're going to talk about that in this video.
Even before somebody dies, when they're sick, in a hospital, in hospice, or just aging, some relatives start peeling off assets early. How do we know? We see it all the time. We talk to hundreds and hundreds of people every week, and this is an extremely common type of fraud: probate fraud.

How does it work? Well, a person in a family dies, or they're getting old, or they're in the hospital, and some people that are greedy start thinking, "How can I get my hands on it? How can I keep that from going to other family members?" Sometimes they think, "Well, I deserve it more because I spent more time with Grandpa Joe. Sometimes they think that I deserve it more because I'm poorer; the other people in the family have more money, they're privileged, they don't need it as bad as I do."
So what happens is that Grandpa Joe dies, there's a will, there's a probate, and the money is gone, the asset is gone, and you would never know about it.

How does a probate work? Well, as you see on the screen, here's a checklist. It's a very specific process. This one happens to be, um, I believe from Pennsylvania, but most states have it the same. Is the name on the will also known as AKA? Are they listed? Who are the fiduciaries? And that's an executive of the estate; that means who's in charge of distributing the assets. Keep that word in mind: an executive of an estate is the person, company, or attorney who is tasked with taking all the assets of a deceased person and handing them out as they're supposed to be handed out. The will will, um, determine how that goes. The executive is supposed to hand out those assets. However, the executive might be somebody who is trying to improperly make the assets go to the wrong place. Maybe the executive wants more assets for themselves. The executive doesn't have to be a third party; it doesn't have to be an attorney; it could be anybody in the family. We recommend, and many attorneys do too, that the executive not be part of the family too much. You know, influence is a conflict of influence.
So the executive also might not know all about all the assets. They're only going to distribute what has been told to them. And even if the will specifies certain assets, there might be other assets that are not listed in the will. Just because the will has a list of certain things doesn't mean there may not be other assets that were never put into the will, that were never disclosed, that were never made aware of, or that were acquired after the will was written. So don't go by that. You have to do a full asset search on the deceased person. And you have to go back to make sure that no assets were, um, separated out before the person died, because a lot of times that happens.

Who's mostly suspect? Those who are closest to the decedent. Sometimes you have a family with people that live next door or live near them, and they're more able to get them to sign things, maybe forge checks, or maybe change deeds. And you might think to yourself, "Well, you know, if my family member is stealing money, I don't really care that much about it." There are two reasons why you should care.

Number one is that, unlike a divorce, if the other party in the divorce is trying to steal money, you know you want to know because that person is an adversary by definition. When you're getting divorced, you're in conflict. These family members are people that, presumably, you're going to see on holidays. They're still part of your family. You might be friends with them. If they're stabbing you in the back, you want to know about it because, if nothing else, it tells you how to live your life later. It tells you how to relate to them in the future. Maybe your kids, you know, go over there and stay overnight. Maybe they babysit. You want to know what you're up against if family members are fraudsters.

The other reason is honoring the deceased. When the deceased person wrote their will, the will is not just a piece of paper with a name on it that says "will." The word "will" means what the purpose of it is. It's their will. It's what they want to have happen—their last will and testament, right? It's a verb, not necessarily just the name of a piece of paper. It's what they want to have happen. And if you allow a person in the family to violate the wishes of that person, it's kind of an insult to them.
Look, if you want somebody else to have more money than the will says, that's fine. Have the will to distribute the money as the deceased person wants and then gift it to the other person. Don't let them steal it, because that's insulting that person. Remember, we're not attorneys. We're not giving you legal or accounting advice. This is just what we see in cases.

So here's a checklist: how a will goes; how a probate goes. Any person who is entitled to share in the property has to be listed. Has the number of survivors been listed? Has it been inserted in all cases? Are all distributees, people who are getting the money, acknowledging the waiver of process? Right? This is a very formal process. Is each person designated as an executive listed? This is all the checklist stuff that people have to go through when they're doing a probate. For all other persons, if they're disabled, the court needs Form P6 for all persons listed. This is something that a lot of times is overlooked because people don't necessarily list everybody that's supposed to get property. Here's a petition for probate. Um, where does it come from? Letters of trusteeship, the will of, and the person's name, AKA. Right? This is a very formal process. But because the court just goes by what's on this form, many times people will use this to their advantage to improperly divert assets. We see it all the time.
So if you think that you may be a victim of probate fraud,