Why would the dad lie to USCIS? Simple, she looked too good to pass up, LOL.

The OP said the new wife isn't in the will. The problem is the dad left some debt behind and the retirement would cover it but it seems as though she was named beneficiary or maybe her name is on it. That is the point of contention it seems. If her name is on it, no probate, she gets it all free and clear. It also appears as though she doesn't want to use any of it to pay off any debts. With that, everyone else is stuck covering the debts with the listed assets in the will.

quote:

Originally posted by davdah:
The OP said the new wife isn't in the will. The problem is the dad left some debt behind and the retirement would cover it but it seems as though she was named beneficiary or maybe her name is on it. That is the point of contention it seems. If her name is on it, no probate, she gets it all free and clear. It also appears as though she doesn't want to use any of it to pay off any debts. With that, everyone else is stuck covering the debts with the listed assets in the will.

It is not so much she is named as POD or TOD on a mutual fund, but how much debt to total value of the assets. Let say total value of assets, excluding the mutual fund, is $500000 and debt is around %450000. And lets say mortgage debt is 370000, credit card debt is $50000, and other debt is $30000. Lets also say personal assets are valued at $50000, house valued at 400000, cars valued at 40000, and bank account at $10000. If this is the situation, then the house would need to be sold, cars turned in, and personal effects may be divided or sold to pay for the credit card debt. And it also depends how much the mutual fund is worth at time of death. If the account is not that significant, then I believe the "family" may want to used that "free money" to pay for the house payments unit it is sold while keeping most of the personal effects. Credit card debt is pretty easy to deal with and cancel if no one is responsible.

However, if the estate is upside down, probate court may have the surviving spouse responsible for some of the debt, primarily credit card or the cars. If that is the case, the family may not need to worry too much.

But I do feel that there is more to this story than anything. If she is named as POD or TOD on the mutual fund, there is very little the family can do. If the family has been hostile or worse towards her after the funeral, I have a feeling she may be thinking his family is greedy, not her. Or it could be that she is unfamiliar how an estate works or other reasons. It is pretty easy to interpret something as "not honorable" or miffed when one is unsppportative of the marriage in the first place. And I wonder why the other wife left him.

From what he said they would have to sell the house to cover the debt load. From that I would assume there are sufficient assets minus the MF to satisfy the creditors. Still, it is surprising the fund wasn't frozen until a determination of asset to debt could be determined.

I agree there is probably animosity between the short term wife and long established family. An example of why its probably a good idea to will everything to charity. Leave nothing to fight over.

quote:

Originally posted by davdah:
From what he said they would have to sell the house to cover the debt load. From that I would assume there are sufficient assets minus the MF to satisfy the creditors. Still, it is surprising the fund wasn't frozen until a determination of asset to debt could be determined.

I agree there is probably animosity between the short term wife and long established family. An example of why its probably a good idea to will everything to charity. Leave nothing to fight over.

Well, willing everything to charity won't stop the fight if some of the money went to charities that she agrees with. Also, some family members would take that as an insult that they were never loved and still blame the short term wife. When you get family members like that, it is a no win situation for all.

A good one that might drive the point home would be the get off your b.utt and earn your own money foundation, lol. Better to have your family pissed at you after your gone than with each other while they're still around.

It is hard to get all the info in about this situation without writting a novel. This is what we have pieced together from his emails. Back in 2001 my father met a Russian women online on one of those sites. He went to Russia, met her and her family, brought her back and married her. She was 25 years younger than my dad. We have found out that she left him in 2003 because he was abusive. He was only interested in someone to have *** with and to keep his house clean according to her emails to him after she left him. As a family, we never knew about this, we only knew what he told us. A year later he started corresponding with several other Russian women online. He kept up correspondence with 4 of them continously and sent them all money. He even sent one of them $4000 to go to the Carribean to marry him there, and come back to America from there. She never showed up and continued to ask for more money, which he sent her. The one he eventually married in 2006 he also sent money to. He married fiance #2 (who is 30 years younger than my father) because he was actually able to get her into the US by lying to Immigration about her status as a business partner. I am the president of my father's company, I know for a fact we were not doing business with her or her father's business. He was not interested in a business partner, he was interested in *** and a housekeeper. He actually says this in a few emails. We have been very friendly to wife #3 (fiance #2) since we first met her. We did not know this whole sorted mess until she got greedy. When the estate was probated we were told that the mutual fund was not part of the estate by the estate lawyer. So she was only supposed to get 5% of the mutal fund. We as a family did not think that was right and wanted to divid it up equally between all of us, the grandkids and his new wife and her kid. We were ready to sign the agreement when we received a letter from the VP of the Mutual Fund company that the wife was going to receive 100% of the mutual fund and his children were going to receive nothing, because my father had added her to his mutual fund as a beneficiary. We were already listed as beneficiarys on the mutual fund. But because my father's financial advisory did not tell him that he had to get his new wife to sign a release form on the mutual fund it did not happend. My father established this mutal fund back in 1992 and the Custodial page did not ask if he was married or ask for the name of his spouse. He was not married then, he married this one in 2006. But the Mutual fund changed companies and hands 3 times and it looks like my father was not kept in the loop about the legally status of the custodial agreement. I have been told that we can sue the mutual fund people for sending this letter to the wife without fully investigating if they should or should not. As soon as she received the letter she got an attorney and told us that she was not going to sign the origial agreement where we all split the money, she wanted it all. That is why we now consider her offically as a gold digger and no longer part of our family. We are now getting ready to go through mediations with her, we hope that she will stop being greedy and decide to sign off on the plan we had originally come up with which divides it up equally. By the way, we can't sell the house because of the surviving spouse or homestead law which states the surviving spouse gets to remain in the house even if she was not left the house in the will. However, she has to pay for the mortgage and up keep on the house. If she stops doing that, we can go to court to say that she has abandonded the house, then we can get it back and sell it. I hope this has explained things in more detail. I just want to get insight into what recourse I have. I have found under the homeland security website, that if the marriage was a fraud it can be annuled. The circumstances on how she got into this country and was allowed to get K-1 Visa were fraudulent. Also, he sent her and her family money before they even met. The marriage was one of convience for my dad. He had her on a short leash, she did not have a checking account, a credit card or a life outside of the home. I believe he was afraid this one would run off too. I know he did not love this women. He left his entire social security benefits to my mother (his 1st wife) and left wife #3 very little. The way she reacted to the mutual fund proves how little she thought of him and his family.

You have to keep women on a short leash. Of course he married a woman for s e x and housekeeping; what else are they good for? Some aren't even good at that. I like your dad; good man.

quote:

Originally posted by SonofMichael:
You have to keep women on a short lease

Lease or leash? LOL

quote:

Originally posted by ProudUSC:

quote:

Originally posted by SonofMichael:
You have to keep women on a short lease

Lease or leash? LOL

I said leash fool; don't change my words. Although lease would be good. I can't stand being around the same woman for more than 2 or 3 years.

One argument is to site your father's intent by his affirmative response designating the beneficiaries from the onset. If the new fund by their own practice places the wife as sole beneficiary by default when there is no direction given by the owner you may have a shot.

His subsequent actions which clearly show he was mitigating any award to her in the event of his demise would also support it. Plus the fact it was obviously a marriage of convenience and as pointed out. More of a leased wife than anything else.

Last question. Is she hot looking?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px7ilisAGj0

quote:

Originally posted by davdah:
Last question. Is she hot looking?

NO! The hot looking one was the one that cheated him out of almost $20,000 and a ticket to the Carrabean.

We were all listed as beneficiaries on his Mutural Fund. She was never asked to sign a release form because he was never given one.

quote:

Originally posted by getherout:
It is hard to get all the info in about this situation without writting a novel. This is what we have pieced together from his emails. Back in 2001 my father met a Russian women online on one of those sites. He went to Russia, met her and her family, brought her back and married her. She was 25 years younger than my dad. We have found out that she left him in 2003 because he was abusive. He was only interested in someone to have *** with and to keep his house clean according to her emails to him after she left him. As a family, we never knew about this, we only knew what he told us. A year later he started corresponding with several other Russian women online. He kept up correspondence with 4 of them continously and sent them all money. He even sent one of them $4000 to go to the Carribean to marry him there, and come back to America from there. She never showed up and continued to ask for more money, which he sent her. The one he eventually married in 2006 he also sent money to. He married fiance #2 (who is 30 years younger than my father) because he was actually able to get her into the US by lying to Immigration about her status as a business partner. I am the president of my father's company, I know for a fact we were not doing business with her or her father's business. He was not interested in a business partner, he was interested in *** and a housekeeper. He actually says this in a few emails. We have been very friendly to wife #3 (fiance #2) since we first met her. We did not know this whole sorted mess until she got greedy. When the estate was probated we were told that the mutual fund was not part of the estate by the estate lawyer. So she was only supposed to get 5% of the mutal fund. We as a family did not think that was right and wanted to divid it up equally between all of us, the grandkids and his new wife and her kid. We were ready to sign the agreement when we received a letter from the VP of the Mutual Fund company that the wife was going to receive 100% of the mutual fund and his children were going to receive nothing, because my father had added her to his mutual fund as a beneficiary. We were already listed as beneficiarys on the mutual fund. But because my father's financial advisory did not tell him that he had to get his new wife to sign a release form on the mutual fund it did not happend. My father established this mutal fund back in 1992 and the Custodial page did not ask if he was married or ask for the name of his spouse. He was not married then, he married this one in 2006. But the Mutual fund changed companies and hands 3 times and it looks like my father was not kept in the loop about the legally status of the custodial agreement. I have been told that we can sue the mutual fund people for sending this letter to the wife without fully investigating if they should or should not. As soon as she received the letter she got an attorney and told us that she was not going to sign the origial agreement where we all split the money, she wanted it all. That is why we now consider her offically as a gold digger and no longer part of our family. We are now getting ready to go through mediations with her, we hope that she will stop being greedy and decide to sign off on the plan we had originally come up with which divides it up equally. By the way, we can't sell the house because of the surviving spouse or homestead law which states the surviving spouse gets to remain in the house even if she was not left the house in the will. However, she has to pay for the mortgage and up keep on the house. If she stops doing that, we can go to court to say that she has abandonded the house, then we can get it back and sell it. I hope this has explained things in more detail. I just want to get insight into what recourse I have. I have found under the homeland security website, that if the marriage was a fraud it can be annuled. The circumstances on how she got into this country and was allowed to get K-1 Visa were fraudulent. Also, he sent her and her family money before they even met. The marriage was one of convience for my dad. He had her on a short leash, she did not have a checking account, a credit card or a life outside of the home. I believe he was afraid this one would run off too. I know he did not love this women. He left his entire social security benefits to my mother (his 1st wife) and left wife #3 very little. The way she reacted to the mutual fund proves how little she thought of him and his family.

Getherout,

I think you and your family members really need to reconcile your image of your father and what actually happened. From what I highlighted in bold, it appears that your father may have not been a kind man, much less the loving father that you and your family think of. From what you said, you basically accused your father of lying to USCIS while making the third wife the scapegoat. You also need to examine your own initiatives why you may want to go through the process. What you are not being told here is the risk you carry if you make a false accusation under the probate. If it turns out she was not married at the time of the marriage to your father, your only hope of obtaining the mutual fund is now down to character assassination.

The problem I see is two basic false pretenses: First, the mutual fund has to require signature of the owner before it is sold and reacquired into another mutual fund. This would involve looking at deed contract. The reason why the mutual fund was not part of probate is because he either had her as joint owner with right to survivership or payable on death. The only thing you can do is challenge whther the signature on the transfer is authentic or a forgery. The other prlblem it that it appears your efforts are based more on greed than you lead on to believe. I am not trying to insult you, but if you read your writings, you are blaming the wife for everything that your father did. You father was the one who lied, not her. Your father was the one who setup the right to survivorship, not her. And your father is the one who changed his mind who gets what, not her. And bringing up the financial isnttitution in this mess will get you nowhere but $10k to $20k deeper in legal fees.

Finally, I have a suspicion that the mutual fund is being used to pay for the home. Again, from what you said, she had no job maybe no job skills. If she was a business owner in Russia, it is possible she may have skills and is working now. Either way, the mutual fund is probably being used.