In The Matter Of The Estate Of:: Fill & Download for Free

Last month I received a surprising phone call from the Executor of an Estate - the estate of a very, VERY distant cousin. He had asked her, his friend, to handle his estate when he passed. He had no spouse, no children, his parents, and siblings had passed - all he had were nieces and nephews. They wanted the abundance of the estate but had absolutely no interest in the family history, photos, documents that had been collected since the 1600s for the various family lines he belonged to.She was worried she’d have to send these items to the dumps - would I be interested in them? I handle the genealogical research for several family lines - I seriously have very little space for items not directly my own, but I couldn’t turn her down. Three boxes arrived last week with more to come. I received their grandmother’s baby book, poetry, and plays that their grandmother and ggg grandmother had written over the years, family photos back to tintype and daguerrotypes of the early 1800s, written genealogy information, documents and images I would have prayed for in doing my own family history. The wealth of information is staggering. I can’t imagine not wanting your heritage, but it will be digitized and the hard copies correctly preserved and archived for the future family members who may one day want this information. When writing up instructions for your estate, remember to keep in mind the items that might not show any significant financial value, but have an intrinsic familial value that is irreplaceable. If your direct descendants aren’t interested, find a cousin who is, no matter how distant.

No. The next of kin does not have to pay the deceased’s (“John Doe”) debts. Nor do any of the other relatives or beneficiaries or anyone else for that matter. The “Estate of John Doe” is a person under the law and must pay it’s own debts, expenses and any taxes due, to the best of its ability, before distributing the remaining money or things of value, if any. This is U.S. law. I don’t know about other countries.There may be an attorney, adminsitrator or executor of the Estate, as appointed by the Will of by the Court. They have to pull together or “marshall” all of the assets and debts and expenses (such as funeral, legal fees, taxes, etc.) of the Estate and make sure they are paid.If there is not enough money in the Estate after liquidating (collecting, selling and/or converting to dollars) the assets and paying the expenses and debts, then the the relatives get nothing. There is an order of priority as to what gets paid first - the relatives get paid last. The relatives are never required to pay the debts.Now, if a relative, such as the next of kin, really wants John Doe’s house or car, the relative can buy it from the Estate. Of course the money the relative pays is used for paying debts, but they were not required to pay the debt or buy the asset.

Not in the United States, at least.When a person dies, all of their property becomes owned, as a matter of law, by a fictitious person known as the “estate” of the deceased person. This fictitious person exists as a matter of law for as long as is required to wrap up the affairs of the departed individual; once that is done, the fictitious person of the estate ceases to exist.In situations where there is no ambiguity, the estate may not be created, because all property interests either terminated at death or transferred unequivocally to other persons (usually, to a spouse).