Dennis Mathiasen
5909 Walker Road
Deerfield, NY 13502
Cell: (315) 941-7270
Email: dennis@silverglimmer.com – preferred contact method
January 23, 2025
I am looking for advice and representation regarding the estate of my father. He died February 5, 2021. My sister is the executor of the estate which has been in probate since May 2021. She had power of attorney beginning in 2015. She managed his finances since that time as well as helping him with his many health problems. I helped also as much as she allowed, primarily with doctors’ visits.
Much is in question, including the size of the estate. $120,000 is clearly in probate, but at least as much as $750,000 perhaps should be. There is a will dated August 2018, prepared by The Estate Planning Law Center. It names 7 step siblings, my sister and myself as beneficiaries, each to receive an equal share of his estate.
In 2016 my fathers’ friend decided that he wanted to leave about half of his assets to my sister and I. He lived in Long Beach CA. He designated his various assets as transfer on death to avoid probate and other potential complications and provided me with a notarized affidavit so that I would be able to obtain the requisite death certificate. My sister intervened and got this reorganized so that my father would also inherit. We never discussed the amounts involved, the total or who was to get how much. It appeared from paperwork he provided that it was about 1/3 each, but that may not have been correct. He died in November 2019 and I received about $350,000. I have seen no further records about this. But I believe all or most of the assets were in a Janney Montgomery Scott account in Saddle River NJ managed by a Peter Ross.
My sister has made a claim of $88,000 against the sole estate asset. It is based on a long term care agreement signed by my father in 2015. It’s not notarized. None of my step siblings nor I had any awareness of this document until it was produced to support her claim. She first made mention of it in a letter to me shortly after the estate was opened. She asked that I approve the claim even if it seems ridiculous because after all, the sole estate asset was “supposed to go TOD to me”.
In that letter she mentioned that I would be receiving about $25,000 as a beneficiary of a trust she had set up. This is my 10% share. She is to receive the other 90%. The trust was signed and notarized January 16, 2020. No attorney was present nor in contact with my father at any time regarding this as far as I can tell. It was not prepared by The Estate Planning Law Center, but by some firm in New Jersey. My sister paid the legal fees for it personally. He was in a nursing home and I visited him about 10 days before. He was in bad shape. I helped him eat. He had difficulty understanding and our conversation was minimal. This is the last time I saw him due to COVID.
A check was issued for me and held by an attorney at The Estate Planning Law Center for about $25,000. It’s to be paid to me on condition that I take no legal actions. Since the trust places no such conditions on my receipt of it, I have refused to do so.
I hired an attorney in May 2021. He filed a motion to remove my sister on grounds of conflict of interest. The motion was later withdrawn as it had no basis in law. Discovery was done regarding her claim. It never included any Janney statements, but did include checking and Schwab statements. She had commingled his money and her own. I involved my step sister Eleanor to help with analyzing the financial statements. She has a BA in accounting. At least $30,000 went missing. There are several versions of the accounting. Apparently as more information became available to others she realized her accounting would need to reflect it, including the $30K characterized as a gifts to her daughter.
I retained another attorney and he filed a motion that her claim be disallowed. It has not been pursued. Eleanor decided to pursue matters herself. Where my hope and intention had been that the trust be broken and the claim be in great part disallowed, Eleanor attacked the will and everything else in sight. She did so with no legal counsel until recently. Ami Longstreet, Esq. of Syracuse, New York was appointed guardian ad litem in May 2024. Monitoring the nonsense exhausted the retainer with my attorney. Eleanors’ actions were dismissed and she was found to have triggered the in terrorem clause in the will in December 2024. 4 others joined her in contesting the will. She is appealing.
My sister filed a new petition for settlement which included yet another accounting. In this one, $554,000 has appeared as amounts “previously distributed”. The provenance of this money is unknown. My speculation is that she used her power of attorney, undue influence and perhaps coercion to set assets transfer on death to her. Further that the $250,000 trust assets represent what she was unable to set TOD to herself. I appeared January 14th to object and need to appear again with counsel on February 4th.