Q: Should Dad's house be included in his will or should it be listed separately?
A: It depends on what your dad wants. What does separately mean? I would recommend your dad reaches out to an estate planning lawyer and explain what he wants. Then, the lawyer can tell him what estate documents he needs.
A: This reads like a DIY question representing a grave misunderstanding of Virginia probate law where some lawyer is going to make much more money straightening out the mess than he’d ever make avoiding it. Under Virginia law, the house in your fathers some name will pass automatically outside of probate to either the heir at law or the designated beneficiary in the Will. It will be subject to recapture by the probate estate for two years after resale to pay the debts of the estate. All wills drafted competently dispose of all remaining property in the residuary clause regardless of whether it is “‘listed” in the Will, but your question may be using that word in its real estate sense to refer to a listing of the house, and the house would be listed outside the Will even if it was listed in the probate estate. So, your question makes no sense, and whether you list the real estate in the Will will turn on whether you expect your father to list it for sale before he dies. Consult competent counsel before your Leo Gorcey use of language costs the family much more to unravel.
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