My family is facing an awful and painful situation after the suicide of a loved one. We are not from the US neither his wife. It was an unexpected situation no one could foresee and now we have a lot of legal questions as we are not familiar with the US law.
General information
- This couple lived in NH and had no children. He was US native and his widow is a legal immigrant with citizenship acquired before they meet.
- They are legally married for 2 years but were together and living in the same house way longer than this.
- He had a will which leaves her with half of his estate and the other half goes for his family. His sister is the executor of his will and already have a lawyer taking care of it.
- He was recently retired under a retirement package and was waiting until 65 to ask for retirement pension from the US Social Security.
Things we want to know:
- First of all: what is really part of his estate? Does their house are included? What about things inside the house like furniture or appliances? A joint account is part of his estate too or is it passed to the widow?
- If the house is part of his estate, what kind of bills have to be paid by the estate? Does the widow have to pay for heating or irrigation?
- What happens with his retirement pension? Does his widow has the right to claim for it?
- Are there any other benefits she should claim because of his death? He was the provider of the house.
- What happens with their health insurance which was part of the benefits he received in the retirement package?
- We don't know yet if he had life insurance. Is there any case when insurance is paid after suicide? We still don't have the police statement, but there is no way to his death to be considered an accident. We do know he was struggling with depression and have documentation about it.
- He had a 401(k). What happens with that? Is it also part of his estate or the widow is the beneficiary? Is the 401(k) part of Social Security pension or these are independent stuff?
- The couple was intended to buy an apartment abroad under the widow's name. They have a bunch of emails exchanged about it, including that he was ready to send the money. Does this have any legal value on this situation? The money they have for buying the apartment will end up being shared following his will? Can/Should she claim for it?
- Does the widow have the right to ask for his medical information to his therapist, practitioner and/or to the hospital that attended him at emergency just at a few days before his death?
- Should the widow trust the lawyer who is taking care of the will and ask him questions like the ones I'm doing here?
- Also, some strange things made us think that his devices may be messed after his death and would like to know if this is something to worry about or we are being too much paranoid. If it is a valid concern, what steps should we take? Like going to the police to make a statement. Should I not try to audit his notebook by myself? I went in more details about this is in this post.
Thank you all in advance. Hope you guys can give us some answers so we can have a little bit of peace of mind on that.
Written By: throwawaybutnotabot
Source: http://bit.ly/2W68Pdi
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