Crawfordsville, IN asked in Family Law and Probate for Indiana

Q: Indiana, mom passed 1 yr ago, her husband passed now. Land and bank acct in both names. Do we have rights to anything?

Will everything go to his heirs?

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1 Lawyer Answer

A: There's no way to provide a proper answer. If your mother had a will she could have left everything to her husband. if that's the case then her husband owned all of her property at the time of his death. If he has a will he can leave the property and assets to whomever he wants.

If neither of them had a will, under intestacy laws your mother's children would be obligated to a portion of her estate. What that could include is whatever she owned in her name. This would most likely NOT include land and bank accounts held in both the husband and wife's name. Those are usually held as joint owners with rights of survivorship. The interest of the deceased automatically passes to the surviving owner of the property interest in those cases. This means that if the land and bank accounts were held jointly with rights of survivorship, since your mother passed first, her husband got the land and accounts automatically and now owns them outright. Assets held jointly with rights of survivorship pass outside of probate and are not considered a part of the probate estate.

If you believe you have a right to any of your mother's property, you would do well to consult with a probate attorney in the county your mother lived in ASAP.

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