N/A deceased grandmother

The aversion to chatting with an attorney is remarkable. A few hundred dollars well spent could save you grief down the road.
Then there is the IRS to consider.
 
First off, it's QUIT claim not quick. While the LAST deed might give you a hint as to what is going on, it's really hard to tell without seeing ALL the deeds. A quit claim from someone who doesn't have any interest isn't worth much and if they don't have sole interest, there's still more stuff going on.

It looks very much to me that the house is likely NOT in the trust. As you have been advised, you should find a laywer. Perhaps if the one who created the trust is still around that would be a good one. He likely has copies of the salient documents as well.
 
Thank you for all the advise. I have a meeting with a real estate agent tomorrow that has dealt with trust home sales and also a friend of ours. I will see what she has to say. I don't mean to nickle and dime this but there wasn't much money in the trust to play with. Legal counsel will most likely come out of my own pocket. We are still waiting for the death certificate to arrive. Cannot proceed much further without it.

You all have been great with this free advise :)
 
You and your mom can take shares of expenses out of the proceeds from the house sale.
 
Matthew said:
My recollection is there are two distinct steps: 1) create the trust, 2) fund the trust by re-title. A lot of people do step 1, but a lot don't follow through all the way on step 2, or do it in some way that wasn't the intention.
Click to expand...

He quoted how the property is listed in the tax records. The tax record seems to indicate that the property was re-titled to the trust.
 
evapilotaz said:
Thank you for all the advise. I have a meeting with a real estate agent tomorrow that has dealt with trust home sales and also a friend of ours. I will see what she has to say. I don't mean to nickle and dime this but there wasn't much money in the trust to play with. Legal counsel will most likely come out of my own pocket. We are still waiting for the death certificate to arrive. Cannot proceed much further without it.
Click to expand...
No offense to your friend, who I'm sure is very good at his job, but he's prohibited by law from giving you legal advice and is most likely absolutely unqualified to advise you on this (even though he might not think so).
 
Last edited:
Actually real estate is a she. Anyway I know she is not qualified to provide legal advise. I just wanted to hear from her experience. Thanks
 
evapilotaz said:
Actually real estate is a she. Anyway I know she is not qualified to provide legal advise. I just wanted to hear from her experience. Thanks
Click to expand...

Get her to pull a favor with the lawyer at the title company to look at the title and the trust to guide you how to go about the sale.

The risk in this situation is that you have a buyer, take earnest money etc. and two days before the closing, either the title company or the buyers mortgage company tells you that the documents are not sufficient.

If the trust and and the re-titling of all the assets was done correctly, the transaction at this point should not require probate or even an attorney.
 
weilke said:
Get her to pull a favor with the lawyer at the title company to look at the title and the trust to guide you how to go about the sale.

The risk in this situation is that you have a buyer, take earnest money etc. and two days before the closing, either the title company or the buyers mortgage company tells you that the documents are not sufficient.

If the trust and and the re-titling of all the assets was done correctly, the transaction at this point should not require probate or even an attorney.
Click to expand...

That's kind of my plan meeting with her tomorrow to discuss. Thanks
 
The sale of the house will EASILY pay for a private attorney to look over everything and advise you on a number of things you never thought to ask.

Been through this twice in three years. Don't be stubborn about not using an attorney. You're messing around with tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets.

Paying someone's fees of anywhere from $100-$200/hr to get this right is a no brainer here.

There are seemingly minor but important mistakes you can make. An example is the requirement in most jurisdictions to hold an estate open for a period of time of "public notice of creditors" and where and what publications (usually local newspapers) that count as "public notice".

Also be forewarned. If you haven't gotten any already, the death notice will trigger a number of sleaze bag scammers to send your mom letters stating that you need to send them money for them to go get you copies of deeds and other things, saying they'll "take care of all of it for you". Tear them up and throw them in the garbage unless they come from the county or state government where she passed or the IRS. Virtually everything else you receive will be a scam. Death records are public so they'll start arriving immediately.
 
Thanks Denver. In all reality this should be cut and dry. Grandma didn't have any debt. All she had was the house, checking and savings account. We already took care of the property inside of the house with the family taking what they want and the rest will be donated. I did get a nice stack about 70 Records from the 30, 40, 50 decade era and her working record player. I love Big Band, Swing and Jazz Music from that era.
 
evapilotaz said:
Thanks Denver. In all reality this should be cut and dry. Grandma didn't have any debt. All she had was the house, checking and savings account. We already took care of the property inside of the house with the family taking what they want and the rest will be donated. I did get a nice stack about 70 Records from the 30, 40, 50 decade era and her working record player. I love Big Band, Swing and Jazz Music from that era.
Click to expand...


Yeah understand. It's not about the debt itself, it's about following the State's private laws.

If you dissolved the trust incorrectly or didn't have a Personal Representative (what my State calls the Executor without a Will) or Executor appointed by the court for the estate, and close all of her business out correctly with the correct paperwork, you'll just be setting up someone for a huge headache later.

Think IRS, as only one of many headache examples. They're going to want to know who "took whatever they wanted" and what the values of those items are. And someone had better have documented it all...
 
P.S. The debt notification period is still required by law whether you think she had any debt or not. That is what I was getting at as an example of something a probate attorney will just make sure happens.

The estate must be closed out correctly in her county of residence and it usually takes a minimum of a year in most states.

You can either hire an attorney to go deal with filing the paperwork while the family does other things, or you can stick a family member with trying to do it months from now and trying to get everyone to remember "stuff they took" etc and do it the hard way.

Y'all can pay a probate attorney a pittance and they'll just take care of all of these details for you and ask the questions they need to know to sail through the paperwork process, or you can create family drama when nobody wants to do the paperwork later or the tax filings got screwed up. (Yup, someone has to do a last year tax filing for grandma and also will need an EIN number to do so because you can't use her SSN now... All sorts of little details like that...)
 
Thank you Denver. First thing first is getting that death certificate. I will talk to mom about seeking legal advise.

We are not talking about huge dollar amounts in personal property inside the house. Grandma wasn't rich by any means. With Social Security and Pension she had enough money to live comfortably, go on cruises, and hit the casinos once a while. Her life insurance only valued $2,500 was expired since 2009. She didn't want a funeral so really not much cost to lay her to rest.
 
Understand. And not trying to be annoying about the attorney thing.

It's a sucky time for the whole family.

There's just a bunch of little details and most states want to see "someone" in charge of the assets however small and an accounting of what occurred. It's not hard but easy to miss things.

Condolences to you and yours, of course.

Like I said above, we've done this twice in three years now... Both times a probate attorney helped immensely.
 
Just talked to the real estate lady. She had copy of the tax records of my mom being owner. Confused here. She is going to have the title company pull a copy of the title.
 
evapilotaz said:
Just talked to the real estate lady. She had copy of the tax records of my mom being owner. Confused here. She is going to have the title company pull a copy of the title.
Click to expand...


Can't you just get it from the county where the legal copy is filed, anyway?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top