Retired Uncle married foreigner he met online; now she's going after family's assets?

[calli]

Hi there,

Here's the "made-for-TV" situation (this seriously belongs in a bad movie or something) -- my retired uncle (who has been married 3 times already and should know better), met a woman from another country via an online dating site, and after a whirlwind online romance, he married her. She now has a green card and is living with him in Florida.

While we wish him all the happiness in the world (after all, with marriages, "4th time's a charm", right?) , we've noticed some very disturbing behaviors. For example:

• 1) Before they were married, she asked various members of my family, "How long do we have to be married before I can get some of his social security payments? Is it once I turn 62? Even if we get divorced?" and "I understand in US law if we are married less than 10 years, I probably won't get alimony, but if he dies and leaves me everything in his will, I'll get everything, right?" (he is in poor health, of course)(but....you couldn't see THAT coming, COULD YOU?)
  
  Granted, it's not a crime to ask questions about "How much money will I get after we're married and/or if he dies?" before the wedding, but still...not exactly the pinnacle of true love / romance.

• 2) She has slowly but surely started doing subtle things to influence my grandparents' (his parents) opinions (they are in an assisted living facilty, one with advanced alzheimers). For example, she removed all pictures of my family (aka "their REAL, ACTUAL family for decades") from their room in their assisted living facility and replaced them all with pictures of ONLY her and my uncle (no pics of the grandkids, great-grandkids, etc....but an 8"x10" glossy of HER!). She will also say things like, "Isn't a shame that [the other relatives, none of whom live in FL] never come to visit, while I come here all the time?"
  
  Sneaky sneaky sneaky. She is also doing things to try to turn my uncle against others in the family (so predictable! at least if she's going to be evil, she could try something unique, right?), but I won't bore you with those tales here. In sum, it's possible that she can butter up my grandparents to get them to change their will. My uncle has already changed his will to leave everything to her (of course he has), but...she seems like a schemer. I think she's going to try to do the same to my grandparents.
  

• 3) Once my grandparents moved into the assisted living facility, my uncle began living in their house (although it still belongs to them). So now they are living there together. Which is fine. Except for the (in principle) yuckiness that she now refers to it as "my" (her) house, and the (in monetary terms) yuckiness that she's had the audacity to now ask the other family members to start paying a monthly stipend "for the upkeep of the house". In sum -- *we* should pay for the upkeep of a house where the two of them are living rent free (!)
  
  I also wonder if they'll use the fact that they live there to claim some sort of priority in getting the home as an asset (which is FINE, as long as others in the family are compensated for an equal dollar-amount vis-a-vis the dollar value of the home)
  

In my humble opinion, this woman is out to scam my uncle for whatever she can get. Which is her right, just as it is his prerogative to be blinded by love and to lose everything of his to her. No worries there.

However, where it starts to get PRETTY UNCOOL (is that the technical legal term?) is where we worry that, e.g., she will somehow convince my elderly grandparents to change their wills such that my uncle gets more than his fair share, then promptly dies of a heart-attack, and then bam!...this virtual stranger somehow ends up with all of my grandparents' assets.

In sum -- my uncle is a fool and probably deserves to lose what he's got. He married her, and caveat emptor there. But 1) I'm worried that some shenanigans will take place so that somehow this lady ends up with my grandparents' assets after they pass away [SO MY PRIMARY QUESTION IS: CAN THAT ACTUALLY HAPPEN OR WILL THE COURTS SEE THROUGH SOMETHING LIKE THIS?] and 2) if she is SOMEHOW eligible for social security benefits even if they end up divorced....well, that's not fair to those of us who are paying in to the system. (and this has nothing to do with any anti-immigrant feelings or xenophobia on my part; I'd feel the same way if she had never been employed in the U.S., regardless of her citizenship).



Sorry this is so lengthy -- I hope that it least it's a LITTLE BIT entertaining / soap-opera-ish. PLUS it's actually nice to vent. BUT MOSTLY my whole family now is worried that she'll somehow do some manipulative hocus-pocus to end up with my grandparents' assets, and MY hope is that a judge would see right through this thinly-veiled "scam in romance's clothing" and will at least restore other family members to what they SHOULD be due, regardless of any last-minute changes to granparents' wills, etc.

Please tell me that's right????? Happy new year!



p.s. and oh, have we EVER tried to get him to see the light, but he claims that we're just jealous that he found true love, etc. (SPIT-TAKE!) #brainwashed

[Attorney Cheri Hobbs]

While this is a family law forum it is focused on divorce, alimony, time sharing etc. issues and not "wills and trusts". It would be appropriate for you to contact an attorney that handles probate law.

Should your uncle and his new found love get divorced the court will take into account everything that is presented in court concerning your uncle's assets etc.