Q: Does inherited property in NC have to be in a will?
My father orally told me he was giving me his house in NC, but he died before he had it put in his will. Do I have any chance of getting it?
A:
North Carolina only recognizes a very limited type of oral will. A nuncupative will must be made either (1) before two witnesses by declaring that this is the testator's will and that he is asking them to specifically bear witness to it, or (2) when the testator was in his "final illness" or in "imminent peril of death". Unless one of those specific situations applies to you, whatever distribution your father originally made of the property in his will probably stands.
See NCGS § 28A-2A-10.
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