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Estate Attorney Did Not Pay All Debts

An attorney for my father’s estate did not pay all outstanding debts and finalized the estate.

I received my inheritance check as a beneficiary and a month after that, the attorney wrote about the outstanding debt not being paid and requested the overpayment monies be paid back.

The attorney also stated that he would not enforce the Receipt, Release, Refunding and Indemnification Agreement nor would he pursue legal action to obtain the overpayment and that he would pay the debt himself as it was his error.

I received another letter where he is now seeking the overpayment or will file papers in Court to obtain the overpayment. How can he go back on his initial statements as a legal attorney for the estate?

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Must I Use Attorney Who Wrote Will To Settle Estate?

I am the executor of my parents estate. Am I required to use the atty who wrote the will to settle the estate?

The executors of my mothers estate are requiring us to sign a release of liability in order to close the estate and receive distributions. We are hesitant about signing the release because we have requested an informal accounting over the past 7 years and they have sent bits and pieces, but we really haven’t seen the entire scope. They told us the formal accounting will cost the estate a lot of money.

We wanted to reword the release to say that we release them of liability only on the information that we know and/or after 4 years after the estate closes.

Is this typical behavior of the executor to force us to sign the release in order to get our distribution? Are our changes to the release reasonable?