Q: my father passed away 5 years ago. mom wants to sell the house but she has 9 kids. one son is dead and we can't find his

A: Hello and thank you for using JUSTIA. Yes your Mother needs to create your beloved Father's estate. Only your Father's children need to be mentioned in the petition to create the estate so only thier perspective birth certificates are needed. If the deceased son was from your Father then we would need his birth and death certificate. The grandson would then be the inheritor of his deceased Father's share in your Father's estate. If the grandson was born in Puerto Rico his birth certificate can be located and issued for this purpose. His share would be then deposited in the court for safe keeping.

You will need to create your Father's estate, submit an estate tax return and register the property under the inheritor's names along with your Mother. After all this is done you will then need to file a petition in court for the court to authorize the sale of the property to a third party thus authorizing the signature ofthe sales contract by a court officer on behalf of the grandson.

The entire process although time consuming is basically simple to comply with. Inorder to protect the buyer of the property a contract of option to purchase and an escrow payment account would be created for the duration of the legal process thus until the final sales contract is signed and delivered. The entire legal process should not take more than six months to process nor cost more than $ 3,000.00 in legal costs.