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How is this legal?
The Conservator appointed for my mother’s estate seized my storage unit that was in my company name and had nothing to do with my mother. we put my business name on her unit when I moved here from New York while she was alive My mother’s Will is in the unit and the conservator put her name on the unit, cut off my lock, and added her own, and though I’ve paid the bill for the last 8 months, I cannot get in it and they are probating without the Will. The unit is not even in her inventory.
Asked on April 7, 2019 under Estate Planning, Arizona
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 5 years ago | Contributor
You have to bring a legal action to get access to the unit and your possessions: if this was "her unit" as you indicate, a reasonable assumption on the executor's or conversator's part is that anything in it is hers--and it is then their legal obligation to prevent anyone from taking anything from it except as ordered by the court (they have to prevent family, friends, etc. from taking anything from the estate). You will need to file a motion in probate court seeking a court order allowing you to retrieve your belongings; you will have to prove in court your ownership of the contents of the unit. You are strongly advised to retain an attorney to help you.
It is not enough, by the way, to pay the bills: people pay bills for friends and family very commonly, for various reasons, without owning the items or contents for which they are paying bills. If the unit was for you, not your mother, you should have transferred it to your name while she was still alive.
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