TAS Dispute with Public Trustee - Possible to Read Will Before Father-in-Law Dies?

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starbassone

Member
17 January 2016
2
0
1
Hi all,

Any help would be great, thank you.

My father-in-law has dementia, is 86 years old and was made to go to a home approx 3 years ago. His wife, 48 years old, did not look after him (that's another story). The guardship board appointed the public trustee ( PT) to be his power of attorney.

Now the wife wants money and got a lawyer to tell the PT to give her the money so they all agreed to sell the farm, which is not in her name, just my father-in-law's name. He would never agree to this as it's be in the family name for over 100 years, but because the PT has the power, they said it's in his best interest to sell the farm.

T (his daughter ) has talked to the PT many times to try and stop them from selling the farm as there was no reason to move out of the farmhouse. She said the wife is not getting a divorce. She is just after the money, so we said "we will try and buy the farm" but could not get enough money, so the other idea was to read my father-in-law's last will and testament as he would not be able to go back anymore.

The wife wants out and wants money. So the will says T (daughter) is to get farm and pay the wife 130k - he farm's value is 280k - but the PT said no. They want to sell it cause it's in the best interest of her dad to sell the whole farm. They are saying he needs the money to look after him in the home but after looking at the account of the home, it's paid for via his pension money with some change.

So the question to ask is, has anyone heard of a will being acted upon or has been read before someone has died and if so, what case reference do I show my lawyer when the time comes to fight this in court over the next month as we did the last thing possible to us, by putting a caveat on the farm not to sell.

Thank you.

Best Regards
 

JS79

Well-Known Member
2 October 2015
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714
Perth
I seriously advise you getting some legal advice on this matter. See Get Connected with the Right Lawyer for You to be connected to a local wills and estates lawyer.
It would need to be done fairly quickly due to them wanting to sell the property
 
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starbassone

Member
17 January 2016
2
0
1
Hi JS79,

We are seeing a lawyer on Wednesday, so I'm just asking, do you think we would have a chance to keep the caveat on the farm to stop the sale?

I just got an email from them the Public trustee to remove it straight away. I know if we do this, they would then try and sell straight away

Any ideas would be great, thanks.

Regards