A horrible probate experience that cost my brother and I over $41,000, and devoured our Dad's estate: My brother, step sister and I initially hired Jeanne Gale to administer the conservator/guardianship of our invalid parents. My brother and I live on the east coast and our stepsister lives in Yuma.
At one point, Ms. Gale actually advised me to lie to my parents about their finances. She advised me to tell them I was in possession of their personal property when in actuality it had been sold. I found this to be unconscionable for someone entrusted by Arizona to handle probate and family court issues. Subsequently, after my father's death the estate was further poorly handled, and again without proper inventories being filed, my brother and I fired Ms. Gale.
Later on, while Ms. Gale was still retained by my step-sister, my brother and I discovered that our father had a will, which was filed with the state bar association. Ms. Gale previously informed us that Dad didn't have a will. Then when we presented the will to the court, Ms. Gale decided to contest it, smugly stating it was not her job to validate the will (thankfully we recorded this conversation). Moreover, despite Ms. Gale failing her due vigilance, the Court accepted the will as valid.
The original judge in the case, directed us to settle the matters of the division of property, with Ms. Gale via conference, in order to keep matters from being tied up in the court, and to save litigation costs. Despite our best efforts to come to good-faith agreements with Ms. Gale, she started filing needlessly repetitive, verbose, illogical and factually false pleadings with the Court. Ms. Gale and our step sister made numerous easily disproved false accusations about my how my brother and I were conducting the affairs of our deceased Dad's estate. Ms. Gales litigation and misrepresentation strategy kept my Dad's simple estate tied up in probate for two years. Despite that extended duration Jeanne Gale and our stepsister never filed proper inventories. It appears that estate assets either hidden, ended up missing, or misappropriated.
After fighting with Ms. Gale for awhile as pro se litigants, my brother and I finally found a great attorney to represent us. In the face of competent legal representation, Ms. Gale suddenly and abruptly abandoned our stepsister in the middle of litigation and left her out to dry.
When it was all over Jeanne Gale made over $75,000 from her chicanery. My brother and I were out over $30,000 in legal fees and $11,000 in other related expenses. Ms. Gale repeatedly resorted to besmirching my dead father, during the court proceedings, trying to smear his honorable reputation.
The real loser from Ms. Gale's self-indulgence is my stepmother. After Ms. Gale was finished with her hyper-litigant posturing, my stepmother only had a fraction of retirement and insurance left, from both my dad and stepmom's retirement funds. Ms. Gale pillaged half of that in legal fees. My stepmother has Alzheimer's and needs the money for her continuing care expenses. In my opinion, Jeanne Vatterot-Gale should be disbarred and sent to jail. I will gladly provide evidence of anything I have written if need be. read more
