father died (they were not together, he was not married and I am his only child) in a wrongful death resulting in money I was supposed to get when I turned 18.
My mother hid this from me until an estranged family member made me aware of it, I asked her about it and she admitted I have money that I was supposed to get when I turned of age (I did not find out about this until I was nearly 20). She dragged her feet, didn’t want to transfer it to me until something happened, there was a big dip in the stock market or something which resulting in 30,000$ being lost and I yelled at her for and she finally sent me half of the money when I was around 21 which was 100,000 AUD. She said she’d send me the other half later.
The way she explained it to me was she wanted to keep my money in investments and use it for herself since I wasn’t interested in investing (I don’t know the first thing about investing and I’m not comfortable having large amounts of money in something I have no knowledge in) and she would send me my balance from her own money but she didn’t have all of it yet.
I turn 27 soon and I still don’t have the money, I’ve brought it up a few times and she always has an excuse. She wants me to have money in the USA even though I haven’t lived there for 15 years and don’t plan on ever living there again. I recently have gone no contact with her due to us having a very poor relationship and I told her before I left her house that she needed to give me the rest of the money and she told me she’d see me in court. So I guess I have to take her to court.
How will this work when the money and my mother is in the USA and I am in Australia? I really never wanted to take my own mother to court over money because it sounds so sad and slimey but she owes me at least 100,000AUD if not more. I have no documentation of how much money is in the account. I only have the company the money was in from a 2020 email.
I feel very powerless and taken advantage of and I really don’t know what my rights are but I do feel like the money should have gone to me when I turned 18 and I shouldn’t be having this legal battle so many years later but I just thought that as my mum she would have my best interest at heart and wouldn’t do this to me.
Location: Nevada (he died there) I lived in NC when he died. and I currently live in Australia and have for most of my life but the money is still in America
Comments
If you were a minor when this case resolved presuming in Nevada there would have been a court order to put the money in a blocked account. Ask her who the attorneys were that represented the estate in the wrongful death claim. This is not technically an inheritance as you described it, it’s a wrongful death settlement. If she refuses to tell you go to the County in Nevada and search the court dockets for his name her name your name. Something is not right about this situation as you describe it because the money would have been yours automatically when you turned 18 unless something nefarious is going on.
Try to find an attorney in Nevada to locate this case if you can’t find it. Good luck