The elderly gentleman's wife was joint owner of the property, but was not asked to sign.. The son had his business partner witness the transaction and another friend notarize the document. Once, the siblings found out, the elderly gentlemen prepared a notarized document in probate court stating he wanted his son to return the property to his estate. In his last will, he stipulated, that the property was for his three remaining children and not the son alone. Before, he died, he called for his son numerous times to inform him of his will returning the property into his estate with his oldest daughter as executor. The son would not answer his call and now the family is in a bitter dispute over the property..
Your situation has to have an experienced attorney to get through this & ASAP.
There are things you can & should do on your own now:
find all their wills & any codicils to them; do a "face sheet" on your parents with all the important details like DOb, marriage date; all kids DOB even for kids who have died (even infant death); details on all real property ownership. Also you should get all items filed on the property (this will be the parcel # and will be on their tax assessor bill) from the courthouse. Most courthouses have the past 5 -10 years available as a download for minimal cost. Like maybe $ 5 for a deed of trust or $ 8 for a covenant. For filings older, the courthouse researches & snail mails to you. You want everything on any property owned by your folks. Either you can do this and make copies & give to your attorney OR they do it and bill for their & their paralegals time. All this is open, public records too.
The daughter that is the named executrix should take the lead on all this with the probate attorney but you certainly can help with the leg work & organizing for her.
In a normal course of events, if a husband and wife own joint property, said property would go 100% to the surviving spouse, or 50% with the other 50% going to the children.
It always amazes me how many people think if one parent passes on that the whole estate gets divided among the children.... what will the surviving spouse have? Nothing?