This may sound obvious to most people, but do NOT sign important documents related to an inheritance without speaking to a probate attorney first. Unless some sort of fraudulent activity has occurred in order to get you to sign, once you’ve signed the documents you can’t ‘take it back’ so to speak. And this can have tragic consequences to you and your family.
Here’s a real life example. I once got a call from a woman, we’ll call her ‘Jane’, who lives in another state and had some questions for me about her father’s estate in Texas. In prior years the father had told Jane, his only daughter, that he intended for her to get a significant part of his estate, but he never got around to getting a will. Upon his death he owned a house and some other assets like bank accounts and life insurance. He had remarried after the house was purchased, so by law she was supposed to get the house while the surviving spouse would get a life estate which means she could still have lived there for the rest of her life if she wanted to. The bank accounts and life insurance had beneficiary forms saying those assets go to the surviving spouse, so these were non-probate assets.
Well, the surviving spouse’s lawyer drew up a document for Jane to sign which says she gives up all rights to the house. Jane spoke with the step-mom about it, and they verbally agreed that if Jane signed this document that the step-mom would give her some of the money from the life insurance in return.
So guess what happens? Without talking to a probate attorney first Jane signs the document which gave the step-mom the house, and then the step-mom backs out on her verbal agreement to give Jane a big chunk of money to basically pay Jane back. When Jane calls the step-mom asking for the money, the stem-mom says that money is just too tight and that she can’t do it. To add insult to injury, Jane sees Facebook posts where the step-mom is bragging about buying a new car and going on vacations.
Jane said she wanted this money to help raise her own child and set up a college fund for him. She’s a single mom and could really have used that money. But since she signed this document and didn’t get it in writing that the step-mom would give her money in return for signing over the house, she got nothing at all. It was one of the saddest calls I have ever taken. Again, do not sign important documents related to an estate without talking to a probate attorney first.