The Texas Probate code states that a will cannot be probated after 4 years. What happens at that time? Does the will cease to exist? The death happened about 17 years ago.

The Estate is insolvent but the heirs are constantly doing things to the surviving spouse (and executrix) of the will like having the name and address changed at the county appraisers/tax office after filing an inacurrate affadavit stating that they are pending owners of the property... Per state law, I do not believe that they are pending owners of the property, but heirs that are due a distribution of their % of net distributable assets of the estate, which at this point are 0.

At the moment, we are most concerned about the name on the property being changed. The surviving spouse lives in the community property home and still has copies of the original deed that shows both of their names. The Chief County Appraiser doesn't appear to be too helpful and I'm not sure if he will be changing the name of the property back to what matches the deed. We don't have the $ to fight with the heirs at this point so, I would like to find out if this is something the State DA's office may handle? Or what we can do at this point.

Every attorney that we have spoken with has said that this is going to be very messy when it eventually goes to court. In 2001, one of the heirs hired F&J to try to get the spouse removed as executrix. They looked into it and then wouldn't pursue once they found out about the insolvency.

Any point in the right direction would help...

ktfiend,

I sympathize with you as my husband is going through much the same thing. His mom passed in 2000 and his dad who was married to someone else (bigamist) changed property names at the tax office also. I believe he had someone inside the county records manipulating the files and erased mom's name from a deed and substituted another's. Then he proceeded with selling this property. We are definitely in the same boat.