Before my father re-married, he signed joint owership/ survivorship rights with my brother and me on stocks he owned. My brother and I never exercised out ownership rights, because this was done to protect this money that we worked for from this new "wife". He has since added to stock stock portfolio, married, moved to Florida and died.
We can't get the process started because the "widow" is contesting the survivorship rights. Is there a situation that will prevent the survivorship rights from passing by the probate courts, like we thought? Maybe because he did not update his will as a resident of Florida.

No, this should not even go into probate, you do a joint ownership with surviorship to avoid taking it to probate. You and brother would be full owners of the stock that was put into joint name.

New stock not added into joint names would not be part of it.

As a widow I an still working on an estate that has been in probate for 4 1/2 years, my advice to you is to get an attorney IMMEDIATELY if you feel there is a large sum due to you.

Find out who her attorney is(if possible) and also contact the court in the area that your father lived and find out the status of his estate.

Do NOT take anyone's words for the truth and do your OWN research EVEN if you hire an attorney!!

Do some digging okay?

I wish you the VERY best of luck!!

Please let us know how everything turns out!!

Any assets held as Joint Tenants with right of surviorship are passed outside the estate. To have such assets transferred to your own name, you simply need to send the stock issuer a copy of the death certificate with a request to transfer ownership.

IF the wife has gotten and served an injunction on the stock issuer to not complete the transfer because of pending litigation, then the stock issuer can refuse the transfer. In that case, you will have to fight the injunction. However, the wife may not have gotten such an injunction as yet, so you should move fast. One kicker in this is you may need to actual certificates. If they are not in your position that could present a problem.

Her suit to overturn the assignment of the assets to you as JTWROS is outside the probate courts because the assets are outside the estate. The probate court would have no jurisdiction here. If the probate court issued the injunction you could have it overturned on the grounds of lack of jurisdiction.

But I agree with Safe. This can be a complex deal and you need an attorney to represent your interests.

You need to know if there is a will, and also contact the company that hold the stocks to which you believe you are still entitled to. (IF you know the name of the company.) Make sure you update your address if needed.

You may also ask that she is not the only administrator on this estate, since you have rights as an heir. I HIGHLY recommend this because it allows you to know everything in regards to your fathers estate.

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Originally Posted by Safe At Home Te

You need to know if there is a will,

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Whether there is a will or not has no bearing on assets held as JTWROS. Such assets pass to the joint tenant OUTSIDE the estate so are not part of assets distributable under a will.

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Originally Posted by Safe At Home Te

You need to know if there is a will, and also contact the company that hold the stocks to which you believe you are still entitled to. (IF you know the name of the company.) Make sure you update your address if needed.

You may also ask that she is not the only administrator on this estate, since you have rights as an heir. I HIGHLY recommend this because it allows you to know everything in regards to your fathers estate.

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You aren't reading the answers - these stocks will pass OUTSIDE the estate.

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Originally Posted by HOUSEFIRE74

Before my father re-married, he signed joint owership/ survivorship rights with my brother and me on stocks he owned. My brother and I never exercised out ownership rights, because this was done to protect this money that we worked for from this new "wife". He has since added to stock stock portfolio, married, moved to Florida and died.
We can't get the process started because the "widow" is contesting the survivorship rights. Is there a situation that will prevent the survivorship rights from passing by the probate courts, like we thought? Maybe because he did not update his will as a resident of Florida.

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Why are the words wife and widow in quotes? Wasn't this a valid marriage?

It has been brought to our attention that my father had filed for separation. This was in the court system, but since he died before it was finalized.
We have done all that you guys have advised. But, since the company doesn't want to make a decision on the this issue(we believe it's because they knew nothing of the JTWROS) I have been told that there is nothing that I can do while my lawyers file this issue with the court to get a ruling.

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Originally Posted by HOUSEFIRE74

We have done all that you guys have advised. But, since the company doesn't want to make a decision on the this issue(we believe it's because they knew nothing of the JTWROS) I have been told that there is nothing that I can do while my lawyers file this issue with the court to get a ruling.

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So you are saying that when your father transferred the stock to you, he never registered that transfer with the stock issuer? In that case, what proof do you have that it was transferred. That is where he made a big mistake. If the issuer still shows him and sole owner of record, then the stock is part of the estate unless you can prove otherwise. So the burden of proof shifts to you.

The stock transfer was witnessed by two others as well as the corporate attorney. They have been validated through our attorneys and the corporate attn. has the fax we sent her that day in 2002. As well we have my father's accountant that has lent his witness as to my father's intent.
We(my brother and I) signed these with my father to protect the stocks that he already had. The problem has become that nobody (including our own attns) can believe that we didn't exercise our rights to our share of the stocks while our father was alive. That was not our purpose at the time. We ALL just wanted to protect any stock that was issued before the marriage.

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Originally Posted by HOUSEFIRE74

The stock transfer was witnessed by two others as well as the corporate attorney. They have been validated through our attorneys and the corporate attn. has the fax we sent her that day in 2002. As well we have my father's accountant that has lent his witness as to my father's intent.
We(my brother and I) signed these with my father to protect the stocks that he already had. The problem has become that nobody (including our own attns) can believe that we didn't exercise our rights to our share of the stocks while our father was alive. That was not our purpose at the time. We ALL just wanted to protect any stock that was issued before the marriage.

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I'm confused. First you say the company didn't know about the JTWROS, then you say the transfer was witnessed and validated by the corporate attorney. Which is it? Again, if you have legally transferred an asset as JTWROS, then that asset is passed to the survivors outside the estate. All the survivors need do to transfer the asset is provide a death certificate. That's it.

I can't understand why your attorneys are acting like that. With the asset registed as JTWROS, there was nothing you could do. All owners would need to sign off on any sale or transfer of the assets.

Either something more is going on here that you are not telling us or something is not being understood. Again, the law is simple here. Assets held as JTWROS are passed to the joint tenants upon the death of any of the JTs. They are passwed outside the estate. All that is necessary to remove the deceased tenant from ownership of the asset is to produce a death certificate and request the transfer. Only a court order enjoining the transfer could prevent it.

You are starting to feel my frustration. This was done in 2002, witnessed properly. We believe that since we didn't exercise these right at that time everyone forgot about them and maybe the president, and best friend of my father, didn't know at the time and can't understand why we haven't brought it up before his death.
Obviously, the president knows about the death and now knows about the JTWROS. His position is that he's isn't going to respect anything without a court order.
We believe that he is delaying this to "starve out" the widow so he can buy back her share of the remaining stocks.
It's easy to Quote the law, and my frustration is 100 fold, but if the owner/president says that he won't release the payments until a court tells him to because he is scared it might later bite him in the , and he doesn't want to lift a finger himself to facilitate this process, what am I to do?
Believe me when I tell you that we are not trying to do anything against my father's wishes and we can validate(and already have) our paperwork. We are in the right 100% as everyone including you all have told us.
Feel my frustration!

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Originally Posted by HOUSEFIRE74

We believe that since we didn't exercise these right at that time everyone forgot about them

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What rights? This is what is confusing me. My parents owned stock in a corporation set up to purchase some land for investment purposes. They owned the stock as JTWROS. When my dad dies, my mother didn't do anything about the stock for a few years. Then when she got sick, she presented a copy of my dad's death certificate and had the stock transferred to herself and myself as JTWROS. There were no "rights" to exercise. When my mom died, I presented her death cerificate and had the stock transferred to my name. Eventually I sold it.

So I really don't know what the president is talking about. As for payments, are you referring to dividends? Those could be an issue because any dividends payable prior to his death should be paid to his estate, but any dividends paid after belong to the survivors.

Where are your attorneys in this? Why can't they send a letter to the president citing the law and threatening a lawsuit if he doesn't comply with the law. If he forces a lawsuit to effect the transfer of the stock, its going to cost the corporation money.

My rights to the JTWROS. I would argue that she exercised her rights when she got sick.
It's tough to accept that I have to sue my own company to get what is rightfully mine.

This still doesn't make sense. You seem to have some idea that the transfer of the stock to you as JTWROS conferred some rights to you prior to the other joint tenant's death. And that's not quite the case. The only rights you had were to dividends if they were paid. Once the stock was registered so that you were part owners, divedend payments should have been paid equally to the owners. Now this may not have to be the case. For simplicity, the corporation could have issued a single check per block to a primary owner or maybe one check payable to the owners jointly. So the only rights you had were to the dividends. And I'm assuming that the deal was that the dividends would continue to go to the father but the transfer was simply for estate planning purposes.