(me) I Have To Fight For Executorship Against An Addict With A Mommy Bankrolling His Lawyer…advice Needed Trying Not To Crash Out????????

Location: Maine, probate out of Oxford.

I know that this is long, but I have incredible anxiety right now, I tried to keep it to the facts and put the crash out at the bottom lol

My father died without a will. There’s a lot of backstory, I’m trying to keep it brief, but if you have any questions, I’m more than happy to elaborate in the comments. He was an alcoholic, and when we lost my brother September 2022, my dad was on hospice by April. I moved from Cincinnati back to Maine to do the very short hospice and get his affairs in order, and that’s when I realized he did not have a will. At that point legally he was in no condition to make one. I wasn’t going to force it, plus I was more worried about losing my dad and trying to do his hospice all by myself with a 6 month old that I was still nursing.

So I did his hospice alone, and then started filing for Probate. I reached out to my younger half brother who was my dad‘s only other living heir, we have always had a strained relationship because he’s an addict. He also gets extremely angry very quick, so honestly it was nerve-racking to deal with him. He would not respond to my texts so I started letting his mother mediate for us. I had always had a decent relationship w her, but I hadn’t seen her in 20 years, naïvely I trusted her. It was extremely hard to find probate attorneys, it still is right now. There’s a backlog where I live, so when she said she found one, I was all for it. Showing up at that appointment they made it clear that they wanted me to sign papers naming my brother as the sole executor of the Estate. I was shocked, and I said I would like to do 50-50 or I’m not going to sign. His lawyer said “fine we will do this without you“ verbatim and stood up and open the door, like kicking me out of the appointment.

So from that point, I knew I was on my own and that they didn’t want to do things amicably. I drove directly to the courthouse and filed for probate that day. Before they did. and then I went out trying to find a lawyer, I still currently have a referral in with the Maine bar, I have not been able to find anybody that has availabilities to take the case immediately. They filed for probate after me, but I’m assuming because he had a lawyer, and I didn’t, that their law firm was able to get me served first. Which is why I’m so freaked out about court tomorrow. Is he going to win just because he has a paid attorney? Or what do judges look for when it comes to executorship? How can I make sure that I am prepared as possible? If there’s any advice that you could give me, what would it be? TYIA

Crash out part The thing that is making me so upset, is that this woman got close to me since my dad passed, she took on a grandmother role for my sons. They were going over to her house every weekend, and then I was blindsided when I showed up at that Lawyer visit. The whole time they’re trying to get me relaxed so that they can screw me over. That’s what it feels like. So I immediately stopped contact with her, and she’s become a raving lunatic ever since. Trashing me on Facebook, showing up at the house with brand new bikes to try to bribe the kids, when I tell her to leave, she screams “it’s not your fucking house“ yes, I’m aware of that, but your son and I we’re doing things just fine until you started meddling in everything…

how can I even articulate myself in a professional way to the judge when I’m so fucking mad? I just feel like we should be doing this 50-50, we should both have to agree to decisions, or we shouldn’t make any at all. And with him in control, we have somebody injecting coke & heroin daily, making the decisions on a half a million dollar estate!! What land is that reasonable? The lawyer is pushing a sale, i’d be happy to buy my brother out of this house, but I would need a little bit of time to get approved for a mortgage... idk yall. Send help.