No. Once the principal is deceased, a power of attorney expires. It will be the responsibility of the executor or administrator of your mother’s estate to administer the assets of her estate.

If you are appointed as the personal representative of your mother’s estate, you may choose to handle the administration of her estate yourself. If the estate is simple and has few assets, that may be preferable, as attorney’s fees can eat into an estate. Fortunately, Kentucky’s court system has produced a handy manual for such situations, which can be found here. Estates can be complicated however, and an experienced attorney can help guide you through the complexities of marshalling assets, reporting to the court, paying off debts, making distributions to beneficiaries, and handling delicate family dynamics at a difficult time.

Only someone with an interest in the estate can properly contest a will. For instance, anyone who might otherwise be an heir at law can contest a will. Similarly, someone who was once, but is no longer a beneficiary in a will (or whose bequest or devise in an earlier will was changed in a later will) can challenge a will.

The typical grounds for contesting a will are related to the form of the will (i.e., missing signature of testator, not witnessed by two people), the capacity of the testator, which relates to the ability of the testator to know and appreciate the testator’s property and the natural objects of his bounty and the ability to form an intent to give such property to the proposed beneficiaries, and whether the testator was unduly influenced by another in executing the will. A party wishing to contest a will must bring suit within two years from the date that the will was admitted to probate.