Cooper, TX Estate Planning Law Firms & Lawyers

If you have an interest in your father's estate, you can file an application for a probate administration, or file a contest if your brother or someone else has started one. However, if you have a trust, it is possible all of your father's assets were placed in trust and no probate is necessary. Look to real estate records to see if real property you think your father owned is actually in his name or in the name of a trustee. If everything is in trust and you are a beneficiary, you can sue the trustees for breach of fiduciary duty. If you are not a beneficiary , you may be out of luck.

A power of attorney is no longer valid once the person who signed the power has died. Even if your mother had signed a power of attorney, then, it would not help you now. It's not possible to tell you what to do now, without receiving more information. You may have to probate your mother's estate, or there may be a way around probate. The question depends mostly on the size of your mother's estate. You can do some reading on the subject of probate, you can talk to a lawyer who handles probate matters, or both.