I am one of two beneficiaries of my grandmother’s estate (50/50 split). The other beneficiary persuaded my grandmother to change her will a few weeks before she died (which happened on Saturday), naming him as the executor (previously it had been her attorney). He also managed to get her financial power of attorney. The day he got the power of attorney (grandmother still living but had turned over her finances to him), he liquidated all of my grandmother’s securities and bonds and had the money transferred into her checking account, on which he is a co-signer.
This guy is as slimy as they come and only a mother’s love would be blinding enough for someone to trust him with her finances. He’s had countless judgments against him in business dealings, including years of IRS tax liens. We have asked him to voluntarily step down as executor and restore the attorney as executor, for the sake of preserving family relationships. Unsurprisingly, he emphatically refused.
It is obvious that he transferred the funds so that he can have immediate access to them and as a joint account holder on the checking account; I assume he is trying to make sure that this money is not counted as part of the estate (therefore not to be shared and he can spend it freely as an account owner).
We will be contacting a lawyer of our own immediately, but in preparation for that we’re trying to organize our questions and strategy. Any feedback on the following would be greatly appreciated:
-How hard is it to have someone disqualified as an executor?
-How hard is it to find out what’s happening in that checking account now?
-Should we focus on what he’s done with the money since getting the power of attorney, or on his lifetime of financial misdealing in building our case? The latter is easily documented, but we’re worried that if we wait around until he blatantly missteps in the current situation, there won’t be anything left to protect.
-What would be the focus of our discussion when we meet with our lawyer?
Thank you in advance for your advice.

