can get you some helpful information. Good luck, hope everything works out.

You don't say whether he left a will. I assume that, whether under a will or not, a court has appointed you as the person in charge of the estate. If not, you should get that done. You should be able to present each bank with whatever documentation it requires to establish your status, and then get the records.

You refer to a joint tenancy and say there were rights of survivorship. Unfortunately, that may mean that the question whether his name was on the deed by mistake is now moot, at least with regard to ownership of the property. If both their names were on the deed, and if it was set up as a joint tenancy with right of survivorship, and if all the formalities to create that kind of concurrent estate were observed, and if that was still the situation as of the time of his death, then his share passed automatically to her upon his death, regardless of any provision in the will.

I don't know whether Delaware is among the states that have a Dead Man's Statute. Such laws prohibit a broad category of testimony by a living person concerning transactions with one who has died. Even if she is allowed to testify, her credibility will certainly be low. The obvious question is: If the deed was a mistake, why didn't she do something about it for all those years, such as bringing the suit she threatened? Why did she wait until after your father died and she could say whatever she wanted without worrying that he'd refute her? A pretrial motion normally wouldn't involve an assessment of credibility, which is the province of the jury, so you might be in fairly good shape for a trial even though you lost the motion. Of course, "fairly good shape for a trial" is relative -- even a successful trial is an enormous expense and ordeal.

Good luck to you!

there is no bank anything as the place is paid off. Because Dad was in a SS doughnut hole, I had to spend down his assets to get him Medicaid qualified. I used my POA to nominally transfer to asset to me to protect that asset.

Your dad didn't care about it but the government did so you now own half the property.

Honestly, do you care?

Your dad owned half, he "gave it to you" so you could defraud social security (instead of selling his interest and using the money for his bills) and now if you make her pay for your dad's half, minus the half of the expenses he didn't pay for the last twenty years (half any big repairs, roofs, etc.) lawyers will have to be involved. Is the money worth it - aka million dollar property?

Are you personally in a financial position where you need the money now? If not, work out a deal where you take possession after she passes or if she sells it you get a percentage.

Are you trying to punish her? Is she some kind of horrible person who you want a little revenge on? If so, please note that you are going to spend some serious time walking through this.

Are there other interested parties? You may have to explain why you gave that asset to yourself instead of equitably dividing it.

A total mess - it should have been taken care of years ago. And you may have to be careful because he may have "given it to her" in exchange for previous favors received (I assume they had an intimate relationship) and not discussed it with you because of a perception of disapproval.

Sounds like it is already getting ugly, and the defraud to compensate for the donut hole, while logical at the time, means your hands aren't exactly clean.

Sympathy!

I didn't push this issue, other than to use POA to sever the joint tenancy. She is pretty rotten, and I am certainly not in a position to just *give* it to her as my interest is about 120k, a life changing amount of money for me. I would not force the issue, however. I am willing to give her a life interest in it.

This stuff is difficult, but at the end of the day she is going to have to "prove" he just gave her that much money "out of the goodness of his heart" because (if I understand this correctly) real property stuff *has* to be in writing.

Keep us posted - my guess is this is going to drag out.

Did he ever go there again after she moved in permanently? Not sure if that's important (and I'm not a lawyer) but I wonder if that's the angle she's working.

You need to get access to his bank records it seems as the next step. Prove that he paid the mortgage and for other items there along the way. Wouldn't your POA be enough for that step?

Sorry about this. I don't really have any answers but I can kick it for you and give you a virtual hug.



I'm sorry about the death of your father and now this crappy stuff....

He did not go there after she was there permanently, but she did come here, and they'd go to the bank and he'd give her money. Banks don't keep records back through the 90's.

and whose name was on the bill? might be easier to establish.

Don't do this alone.

so I am just trying to think on it...