In some cases, the wills are transferred in bulk to another law firm when a lawyer retires, and similar notices are made.
Sep 08, 2016 · If the will is in your attorney’s safe, that will not happen. In your case, this backfired. After your attorney retired or died, his staff should have mailed the original wills to you and your husband. Of course, they may have tried that. If you moved without telling your attorney, then his staff had no way to return your original wills.
Mar 02, 2007 ·
In the typical scenario, if you've done estate planning with a lawyer and he or she dies, retires or goes out of business, it means you need to start your planning over with a new lawyer. What does that mean to you? Generally, it means you will find a new lawyer and he or she will have to create a whole new plan for you.
While a copy of a will is probatable in most circumstances, the legal fees of a cost of a proceeding to admit a copy to probate far outweighs the cost of having a new will prepared. I agree with the prior posts, have the will redone and stored in the attorney's fire proof vault.
That will not be good enough when you die. You need the original Will for probate purposes. As the previous poster indicated, hire a new attorney, prepare a new Will revoking all prior Wills and have that attorney hold the original in a safe. Alternatively, you could keep the original in a safety deposit bank or a safe of your own.
You really don't want to leave your heirs in the position of having to worry about whether a Surrogate's Court will admit a copy of the Will to probate. Your prior attorney may have filed the original will with the Surrogate's Court in White Plains (assuming that you reside in Westchester County). Check with the Court and see...
You should go to a new attorney and get a will executed right away. You can have your new attorney keep the new will in a will vault or you can have the document filed with the Surrogate's Court.
Copies of wills are always a problem. If you can't locate the original, then take your copy to a new lawyer and have them do another one with the same provisions. It probably needs to be updated anyway.