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not ready to lawyer up but I do want to educate myself here.
As some picked up on in another thread my Dad passed last night. It was a long hard fight with the Big C. In the midst of his battle, My step mother refused to be his caregiver during his last resort (stem cell transplant has to have someone designated) It was the last straw so after the transplant he began divorce discussions and they agreed to the legal splits on most items.
Here is the tricky part. Though dad was a divorce attorney himself, he didn’t have a will in place. Toward the end, we would ask him about his wishes but we could see that it distressed him so we never pushed. What he told us about La law is that without a will, his property flows to the children. But he also told us that if she decides to stay in the house that constituting what is half is the tricky part.
Things are extremely volatile with my step mother because at the end, whenever he would get out of the hospital, he would go home and get sick again. He would become unresponsive to texts and she would refuse to help us get him medical attention, including refusing to help his doctors get in touch with him even though she was in the same house with him. Ill stop short of saying exactly what I think she was trying to do but his doctors advised that it was elder abuse. And she refused to let anyone come to the house, even explicitly telling me and my sibling we were not welcome at the house. I’m not pursuing criminal at this time; we count our blessings that he got himself to the hospital that last time. I say all that just to show that this isn’t a pretty relationship.
Dad had a lot of stuff that was sentimental for us. He was an antique collector since we were children. I’m not so much interested in trying to get his things right now because I don’t want to get that emotionally invested in a fight. I am, however, very interested in what we can do as far as documenting what is in the house. I have a mental image of her just selling all that stuff off and us not knowing.
I wanted a trusted place to learn about our options as far as Louisiana law is concerned. Like is there a way to get the home inventoried.
Thank you Chuck. Ugh, yea I figured it was going to be tough. I guess we will go ahead and get an attorney. I am very guarded against my own emotional investment in the process because I have seen that stuff eat people alive.
Our biggest hurdle is that all of the stuff is in the house where we are no longer welcome. Much of it is old valuable furniture stored in a monster attic. Had we been able to talk to dad more about it we could have probably gotten him to appoint an administrator but he was geared toward beating this until the end and so that is where we kept the focus. And she was just a loveless person who was attacking him with her agenda until the last day so the last thing we wanted was to make him feel like there was anyone else like that in his life. So it was obviously delicate conversation
and dads friends were obviously in large part attorneys. So we have to break the news to them today. The one that would have been handling the divorce, I will ask more about the intestate succession attorneys in town. What is better for us, to get an attorney where the estate is or to get one in NOLA where we are?
Where is the estate?
Monroe. once we go back there isn’t much reason for us to come back up here except to come get his ashes.
My guess is that it would be better to have the attorney where the estate is domiciled. I would start there, but if you have attorney contacts in New Orleans ask them that question. And ask them to help you find the attorney in Ouachita or wherever.