IMHO, every family needs to have a frank conversation about estate/probate actions and a basic understanding of how it works and what to expect.
If this happened it may resolve some of the pettiness that we see and hear about or have experienced in our own lives when forced to deal with it.
In my case, my mother had a will and named my oldest brother and sister her executors. My oldest sister just let my brother manage it and it turned into a huge shit show with him trying to claim every dime he could by over inflating his actual expenses so the estate could pay for it. this all came to light after he sold the house and the escrow company wouldn’t release the check to him until it went to probate, which was about a year after her death.
We all trusted him and were blissfully ignorant of the laws until I saw his expense report, which all heirs get a copy of. His shady lawyer snail mailed it out, so we only had 2 weeks to contest it. I immediately called an attorney and ended up fighting him for another year & a half. By the time we were done, he ended up settling in front of the judge right before our hearing started for less than a full share. He had lied so bad and pulled other crazy shit, that had the case proceeded, the judge would have stripped him of everything. The sad part was we had all offered to pay him about 25% of the estate out of our shares but he refused to settle. After his attorney fees he ended up with about 1/16 of the estate.
I was the executor of my mother’s estate. I kept trying to show my sister the bank balances and how much each of us would get after the expenses which I tried to go over with her constantly. Finally she said “stop. You’re the most honest person I know. Just cut me a check when its all over” I fixed my Mom’s house up so much I sold it for more than the appraised value. When my sister got her check from the closing attorney she couldn’t believe it. 😄