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damarina1960 · Mar 2, 2009, 01:08 PM

My mother and stepfather passed away. My mom was the last to passed away last April/08When they passed away they did not leave a will. There is a property (house) in question. This house is in Puerto Rico and we are 9 children all together... 5 from both parents and 2 from mom and 2 from stepdad. We know the first step to follow will be recognizing the heirs of property and I kind of know what follows. My question is that according to one of my sisters which is kind of investigating the procedures, the person that is working on the papers to identify heirs... told my sister that when he submitted some type of document to investigate if my parents had left a will.. he found out that my mom left a will many years ago. According to them it has my mother's name and social security which I kind of doubt.
I do not believe my mom left a will because knowing my mom that never save a penny in her life and actually was more of a spender of course in practical stuff... but to make it short... she was not the type to save money. If this is true that this will is real and it was left by mom and of course we are talking when just 4 of us children existed and recognizing that 2 of these 4 are from mom's previous marriage, is it true that if this is a real will and mom left this will for lets say just 2 or even the 4 existing children at that time, is it true that this will have to be share with the other children that came after making that will? I know is a little complicated but I try to explained to best I could since english is my second language. I hope you understand my question and my dilema! Thank you. Oh by the way... my mom live and died in Puerto Rico. I am in United States.

Fr_Chuck · Mar 2, 2009, 01:15 PM

Well part of the issue,
1. the step kids if not adopted will not be heirs, so the kids of "dad" will get nothing since dad died first and normally everything goes to the mom.
** unless purto rico has some different laws.

After that, at least in the US where I am at, if the will is that old, they can not "exclude" or merely not mention some, but most wills name all children born or adopted as a standard wording ( at least the ones I see)

So first order of business, you need an attorney in puerto rico to handle this, perhaps all the brothers and sisters can hire one together.