Will/trust question in Texas

[taoliva]

Trust/will question in Texas. An adopted child is not mentioned in a 1993 will/trust as a beneficiary. This child was 14 at that time. The settlors will had the saying \"if neither my wife nor any "issue" of mine survives me I give my whole residuary estate to my daughter in law\". The daughter in law was also named as trust successor in this will after the wife passed. The daughter in law's husband passed 5 years earlier.
Well bing bam boom and in 2003 the settlors wife dies who had a grudge against her sons wife who was supposed to be trustee successor of the 1993 resid estate. Well wahlah months after this lady passes the executor, a 3rd cousin on the passed ladies side of the family shows up. The executor then procedes to transfer all of a million and a half dollars worth of stock from the pension savings account of the deceased settlor who established this residuary trust in his 1993 will. The executor then transfers it to this ladies estate out of what I feel should have been considered the husband's residuary or leftover estate and under control of the sons wife as successor trustee. At least I feel she should have been notified of all this. Now the executor was also named as geting 40% of the ladies estate so the motivation was tempting.
> . Well the son\'s wife, (should be trustee), is then totally left out by name of the 2003 will so never involved at all by this executor. Also the lawyer for the deceased lady did all these wills to include the 1993 will setting the trust up so she knew.
> In short after I looked at all this recently while helping this lady this all kinda looks questionable to me. The adopted daughter not even mentioned in the 1993 will/trust by name wound up with a million dollars worth of the settlors stock in 2 trusts, one for her and her son not born until 2002.The trustee of her son's account was a close friend of the lady that died in 2003. Best we can tell most of that money is now gone. The trustee of grandsons trust refused to provide an accounting.
Now the daughter in law named as a beneficiary and trust successor in the 1993 will got nothing. The excuse I heard was that term \"issue\" meant the adopted daughter got everythhing. Puke! Well my view is that this is extreme \"Good ole girlism\" and I think there may be a basis for fraud here based on intentional bypassing of the real trust successor, not involving all possible beneficiaries, and not bringing the 1993 deed up to scrutiny. I know you can\'t give a definitive yes but ideas gratefully accepted. Thanks
>

"issue" does include adopted kids in Texas as far as I recall, if that is what you mean?

[taoliva]

Ok on the issue and yep I kinda got the adopted part thanks. The question is/was however in regards to the grandfather that set up the trust and no one seems to want to answer this directly is my problem here. Grandpa sets up a residuary trust say in 2000. His son adopts a child say in 1995. Now after grandpa dies in 2000 the son dies a couple years later. Then the Grandmom dies after that say in 2003. Ok That leaves the son's wife and her natural daughter adopted by son as only heirs to grandpas residuary estate. Now in the original graandpa trust was the applicable statement here; "If my wife passes and no other issues of mine survive me I give my entire residuary estate to my daughter in law". Lot of manipulating going on here for a lot of other reasons I can't talk about. However in the grandpas will statement "no other issues of mine" I can see that interpreted 2 ways. Grandpas only real "issue" seemingly left was his daughter in law whom he actually named in his will as benefactor and successor trustee. However I can also see it vaguely interpreted as his sons adopted daughter being an "issue". However she was alive at the time of the will and not named in said will. Now when his son passed right after the Grandpa then did that break any "issue" connection for the son's adopted daughter with grandpa's estate? My reasoning being the Grandpa put in "issues of mine" still alive. In another paragraph he put if his son survived then his son would determine his issues to get grandpas estate. Now seeing the grandpa's estate didn't adopt his son's adopted daughter by naming her how does that affect the ultimate distribution of that estate after everyone else is gone? I know I screwed that explanation up but the best I can do right now. Thanks