The transfer may have been part of elder law planning so that you qualified for Medicaid for your nursing home costs. There is a requirement when there is one spouse in a nursing home and the other spouse is living in the community to transfer the couple's assets to the community spouse within... View More

Unfortunately, this property that was owned by your deceased parent cannot be transferred with a deed. You will need to open their estate at which time the will is admitted to probate and other court papers are filed so that the judge will sign a court order transferring the property to you. If... View More

If you and your husband own the property jointly as husband and wife (which implies survivorship), and you are the only one on the mortgage and you are the first to die, yes, your husband can sell the property. He would then be the sole owner subject to the mortgage. If he provides a death... View More

This is essentially a family law question. As an estate planning attorney, however, I can confirm that if the home was not owned by you and your wife and it was purchased by and owned by her parents and then transferred into her parents' trust as part of their estate plan, the home would not... View More

You will need to open a probate estate to have a check payable to your late brother reissued to his heirs. If it is less than $75,000 and there are no other assets or creditors, then talk to an experienced probate attorney about filing for summary administration. When the judge signs and order of... View More

When you sign a consent to a petition in probate, it means you agree with what the petitioner is requesting in the petition. When you waive notice and a hearing, it means that you agree that you do not need to be served with the document and a formal notice via certified mail. A formal notice would... View More

If the refund check is less than $75,000, then you can open a summary administration and get an order to reissue the check to the heir. If it is more that $75,000, then you would have to open a formal administration, get appointed as the personal representative, and then use the court order to open... View More

I recommend that you consult with an experienced attorney who handles family law and probate. Ask them to review the divorce decree to see what your parents agreed to. For example, it may be that your parents continued to own the house 50/50 as tenants in common. If you are your father's heir,... View More

Please accept my condolences on the loss of your father. You will likely need to open an estate for your grandfather and your father to transfer the property to you. First, in your grandfather's estate, his heirs would be determined and a court order would transfer the property to his heirs... View More

Yes a will can be admitted to probate if one or more of the witnesses is deceased. If the will is self-proving, meaning that certain attestation clauses are included in the signature area, then witnesses are not contacted in the probate case at all. If that attestation clause is absent, then the... View More

If there are no non-exempt assets, there are no assets from which the Court would enter an order directing that you be reimbursed, the reason being that the probate court only has jurisdictions over the assets of the estate. So, yes, the Court does order that the heirs pay any debts for which... View More

If you are listed as what is called the remainder beneficiary to receive the "rest, residue, and remainder" of the estate, then you would be entitled to any asset that was part of that remainder including proceeds from settlement. The remainder would not include any asset that passed... View More

If there have been no adoptions in your family, then this clause would not affect anything. It would be considered boilerplate that you can ignore. If there were an adoption in the family, then this clause, depending on what it says, would either include or exclude the adopted person.

The home would pass to the surviving joint tenant named on the deed. Because the mortgage is secured by the real property, the ownership of the home by the surviving joint tenant is still subject to the mortgage. In cases like this when there is no probate required, the surviving owner should first... View More

It is important that the taxes be paid before the date of the tax sale. Check the tax collector's website to see all the instructions for paying the taxes so close to a tax sale deadline. Anyone can pay the taxes, so it is okay for you to be the one to pay them. Typically, where there is... View More

Listing assets on the Schedule A with the exception of listing "all of my items of tangible personal property" does not in fact fund the trust with anything. It is essentially there to show there is $10.00 in trust at the beginning so that the trust is not empty. The trust is actually... View More

One time in my 28 year career I did recommend that my PR client retain a separate attorney to represent them in their capacity as an heir for the limited purpose of explaining how a life estate worked, because they did not agree with my explanation and thought that I was somehow working on behalf... View More

You can ask the closing agent to include all the estate expenses to be put on the closing statement when the house is sold, and if your sibling doesn't sign the closing statement, then the closing cannot take place. That is your leverage. The closing statement is the last opportunity for you... View More

This is a question that would need to be answered by a Rhode Island attorney as it is the law of the jurisdiction where the testator resides at time of death that would be applied. As an example, Florida law states that a personal representative (executor) must either be related by blood or... View More

If the summary administration is closed and the order determining homestead status or other order distributing the property out of the estate was already signed by the judge (meaning that the real property is no longer in the estate), and the real property was the only asset, it does not make sense... View More