5 Ways to Find Out What Happened to Mom’s Money: and why it isn’t in the estate or probate. (Financial Estate Discovery)

Wondering where all of mother or father’s money went and why it’s not in the probate or estate? If you thought that mom or dad were worth a lot more than the estate lawyer is telling you, here are 5 Tips or Points to Learn Where Mom or Dad’s Money Went.  Maybe dad or mom had a serious illness during their last  year and the medical bills were huge.  OK, but what about the rest of their money?  Gifts may have been made, but were the gifts in line with prior years’ of giving or were there big checks cut just before death?  Was mom or dad incompetent orincapacitated due to dementia when large amounts of money were given away?  You have questions and you want answers?  This might help you better understand why more of yourparents’ money is not in the estate or probate, and perhaps, help you find out where all the money went. 

5 Ways to Find Out What Happened to Mom’s Money: why isn’t the estate bigger?

• What to find out where all of the money went?
• Why isn’t your inheritance bigger?
• Why isn’t the estate larger?
• You may need to conduct, engage in, or begin FINANCIAL PROBATE DISCOVERY.

1. If a Palm Beach probate is opened, you can use that estate proceeding to try to get answers to your questions.  Without filing a separate lawsuit.  If an estate is not openedup, then file a petition for estate administration with the local probate court and open up the estate and begin the probate process. Why?
2. In the estate administration or probate process, get appointed as the executor of the will, or executor of the estate.  What we  in Florida call the Personal Representative.  The executor has power !  And that includes the power of subpoena! And the right to conduct discovery.  Read the local Florida probate rules and the rules of Florida civil procedure.  Take a deposition of the financial advisor from Jupiter, Florida?  Issue a subpoena to a Boynton Beach bank?  How about inspecting books and records of a partnership or Florida limited liability company which your mom or dad had an investment in?  Need the operating agreement to that Florida limited partnership orfamily limited partnership?  Need a trust accounting from the trustee of your mom’s revocable trust? What about that buy sell agreement for that private company?  Want to know when a beneficiary designation occurred or how someone’s name got put on, or got taken off, a joint bank account?  That’s financial discovery in a Florida probate.
3. Call your parent’s advisors who know where the money is or where it might have went.  The CPA or book keeper in Boca Raton, the estate lawyer in Lake Worth.  What about the private banker in Palm Beach or the broker in Delray Beach?  Any financial advisors? Pick up the phone and talk to them. If they don’t talk, have your probate litigation law firm explain to them that as Personal Representative, now, you ARE your father or mother.  You run their estate and are entitled to THEIR information.  If they baulk, consider having them sit for a deposition.
4. Issue subpoenas.  Get statements, books, records and even files. One of the most powerful tools that a Florida probate litigator has is the power of subpoena.  The authority to issue a command to someone to produce documents.  Go get those bank statements, financial account statements, tax returns.  They will tell you what assets mom or dad had.  And where else to look.  You end up “playing Sherlock Holmes” to solve the mystery.
5. Read.  Read their mail, read the tax returns, read the bank statements and financial account statements on line, in the emails and in the US mail.  They will tell you account numbers, older accounts (perhaps), closed accounts (perhaps), phone numbers and names of people with information, how much money was there, where it went and when. Remember: you want to reconstruct the financial lives of your parents over the last 4-5 years. Find out where the money went, when the money was taken, by whose authority (power of attorney, Florida POA, revocable trust, Boca Raton Trustee, how much and WHERE DID THE MONEY GO?