Step-Mommy Dearest…Can my Step-Mom Change my Father’s Will After my Father Dies?

[Music] Hi this Keith Davidson at Albertson in Davidson and in this video I want to discuss stepparents and I don't mean to disparage stepparents there's a lot of very good stepparent and stepchildren relationships out there but there's also some bad ones and a lot of times we're asked can my step-mom or stepdad can they change the estate plan after my parent dies so typically in this scenario maybe you have a father who married somebody new and that's your stepmom and then your father passes away and you always thought you had a good relationship with your stepmom but after your dad passes things start to get a little strained and awkward and you start to wonder can she actually change the estate in some cases it actually might get downright hostile and maybe the stepmom actually tells you I'm changing the estate and I'm leaving it all to my kids and I'm not going to leave your father share to you after all and you wonder can she do that and the answer is maybe and that's the typical lawyer answer right but it depends it depends on what your father did when he planned out his estate or if he didn't have any planning at all that could be a real problem so the best case scenario would be if your father had created a trust prior to his death he has the right to leave assets to stepmom and that's fine but typically what you'd want to see is that he left money to stepmom in a trust so she can use that money for her care and support during her lifetime but she can't change the ultimate distribution of it whatever's left over after stepmom passes has to go to you but that only works if your dad created a trust and if he had a trust created that had those type of terms in it that allowed the stepmom to use the assets but not control them that required that the assets go to you after death if your father didn't do that then you probably are not going to be entitled to his share of the estate and so what happens a lot of times is either your father leaves everything to the stepmom in which case she can do whatever she wants after your father dies and she can cut you out or he just doesn't plan at all and things just pass to the stepmom because it's in joint tenancy or she's the beneficiary on life insurance or whatever the case may be so when these things are not planned out and if the assets actually passed a stepmom after your father passes away then you're really in trouble because the stepmom can do whatever she likes she becomes the owner of those assets and she can do whatever she wants with them has the owner the fact that your father may have had a family home that you grew up in and lived in and that's been in the family for decades the law doesn't care about that if your father didn't plan it out properly and so that's really the big question so anytime somebody approaches us and says can stepmom change the estate after my father passes away the first question we're going to have is well what did your dad have in place did he have a trust did he have a will did he have something that we can look at to see if you as a child have any rights to any of those assets and if you were to tell us that no he didn't have any of those things then chances are you're out of luck and that's a little something about the downfalls of stepparent and stepchildren relationships when it comes to passing assets. [Music] [Applause] [Music]