Can you help me with these Estate questions?

Did your husband leave a Will?

How old is the truck? I’ll tell you why I’m asking later.

No will. Not Rick’s thing. Besides, I had all the money.

Truck is a 2011 F150.

I’m going to pm you.

Kl

Most states almost everything goes to the spouse. Did he have any debt at all on anything only in his name? If no debt then there should be no problem. Did he own the truck outright? No loan?

I would call the DMV and ask what they need to put the car in her name. Keep in mind every time it changes hands the new owner usually has to pay tax on the value of the truck, so hopefully it can go straight to her if you waive your right to it or possibly there is no tax if it is a spouse so it might not matter if the paperwork has it go to you first.

Note: in FL if you try to lowball the value of the car to pay lower tax, the government comes back and makes you pay the legitimate tax amount plus a penalty and the penalty is large. I personally know two people who had to pay up.

Also, most places require seeing an original death certificate but then make a copy and give you back the original. A few places will insist they need to keep an original. Usually they are wrong but that’s what they were taught. If you have a few originals you might let it slide, but originals are expensive usually so you might want to check with another person at the company or government office if you are being told you can’t get the original back. We paid for three originals for our aunt just in case.

In NYS, if there’s no Will, whatever the deceased owns goes to a Probate court, where they assign it to an attorney (frequently a friend of the Probate judge) and the attorney bills the estate for their services. In the case of an old car, like what @Dutchess_III is talking about, it’s almost not worth it.

This won’t help with the question about the truck, and of course it matters what state you’re in, but when my dad died, my mom’s SUV was in both their names. We had to go to a tag and title place but we got his name taken off the title. I believe we had to take the death certificate, stuff like that. We also could have gone to the DMV but this seemed like a quicker option.

In California, transfer of title between family members costs a minimal amount (like $25).

@zenvelo That’s great to know. I hope that’s true in the OP’s state.

@zen what if the owner of the title is dead and can’t sign for a transfer?

My condolences, @Dutchess_III.

All the stuff you have to deal with all of a sudden can be overwhelming. I dedicated a notebook to a day-by-day record of what I did so I wouldn’t forget.

If I’m remembering correctly (the notebook is now buried somewhere on my desk), I went to DMV with my son, taking my late husband’s pink slip and his death certificate, and we paid a small fee to transfer title from the deceased to my son.

@Dutchess_III what @Jeruba said applies in California.

After my former brother in law died, my son took the pink slip and the death certificate to the DMV. Just a bit of paperwork.

Kansas: https://www.ksrevenue.gov/pdf/tr82.pdf

Rick didn’t list transfer on death beneficiaries
He has no will.
He didn’t assign a POA.
I’m working with an attorney.

What pink slip?

POA ends when the person dies. You probably mean an executor. Just letting you know the vocabulary.

Did Rick own a lot of things? You might not need an attorney. Is your name on the title of your house?

@Dutchess_III my parents didn’t have a will either which we were actually pretty surprised to learn. I think it was just one of those things they put off and then never got around to. But it was a pretty simple process. We all agreed to let my sister be executor, which she had offered to do. She very kindly did not take any of the fee that the executor is entitled to. And it went pretty smoothly.

Well…I think his daughter might cause some trouble. That’s the sense my attorney got when she showed up at her office asking questions. They refused to answer any of them and she was gob smacked. She said “Are you kidding me??”

@Dutchess_III That sounds to me like you get everything and she wasn’t happy. I could be guessing incorrectly. You shouldn’t need a lawyer for that, I just don’t want you to pay a lawyer for nothing, but hopefully the lawyer isn’t charging a lot. I can see how a lawyer might make it all less stressful.

Got the death certificate today…I can’t figure how she’d be upset over the fact that I got everything…because I’M HIS WIFE!!!

@Dutchess_III, I hope you got several copies, because some offices or officials are going to want to keep an original. I got 10, just to cover the bases. I think I have six left. Somebody told me she had to produce one 20 years after her husband’s death.

@Dutchess_III Because if she is his daughter and not yours, she will get nothing of his, unless you give it to her or will it to her. It sounds like you are giving her the truck, so she isn’t getting nothing.

I obviously don’t know what she expects. Maybe she thinks he had money tucked away or something? Families often have problems when someone dies. I expect my sister to feel like she was cheated even if she winds up with the exact same amount as me when our parents die. She will never trust it. She could get 90% and she won’t trust it.

I think she feels that her relationship with her dad was so special that it usurped my relationship with him.
Sorry kid. No matter how special you feel it was I trump it under the law.

@Dutchess_III Agreed, but also consider when you die, if without a will, everything you have left will go to your kids and nothing goes to his children. The order of which step parent dies first can make a huge difference regarding inheritance. You are giving her the truck, so she needs to chill out.

I’m just so mad and so tired. I don’t need this bullshit.
She put together Rick’s ” funeral” all bells and whistles, never once consulted me. Just sent me the bill.
It was twice as much as it needed to be.

@Dutchess_III I’d be upset about that too if I were you.

I think she took Rick’s phone too…

It’s unfortunate that when someone dies, there are often rifts in the family, and the family dynamic changes. People will fight about power structure, inheritance, who gets what. Things can become petty very quickly. I’m not saying your problems are petty but it can become petty when in the past, everyone got along well.

That’s no joke @jca2. There is always that one person.
In my parent’s case it was my sister.
In this case it’s turning out to be Rick’s daughter.

@Dutchess_III if she spent a wad on her dad’s funeral without consulting you, you could sell the truck to pay for part of the funeral expenses. That sounds totally legitimate to me.

Good point, @snowberry. If the daughter wants to play games, @Dutchess can play, too.

Yes. Any number of nasty things I could have done in retaliation. Not.my style.