Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Georgia
father passed, no will, married only his name on deed, i want the deed
My father died early this year. No will. Had a house, the deed was in his name only. He was married, a few weeks after his death his wife handed the keys over to me and left the state. She left everything in the home, my dads stuff, food, furniture. She said she was going to let the house go to foreclosure because she not want to stay in Georgia.
I did not have a place to stay, so I moved in. I cleaned out the entire place, made slight renovations; I pay the mortgage and all the bills.
I have contacted her before renovations were made and she said I can have the house because she did not want it, I opened the estate and became the administrator. I then quitclaimed the deed over to myself. I was unable to have the mortgage transferred to my name because of my credit.
Did I do the right thing. Since only his name was on the deed. I have spoken to a lawyer that said that�s what had to be done. Since I did not hear from her after that. Another lawyer said that my stepmother would have to be the one to sign the quitclaim deed.
What should I have done, should I be worried now?
I�ve already invested over $3,500 plus I�ve been paying the m
4 Answers from Attorneys
Re: father passed, no will, married only his name on deed, i want the deed
You need a lawyer. Any advice I would give you might be wrong because one fact can change the entire scenario. Generally, you would file as administrator, pay all his bills first, then distribute the assets to all the heirs. You need to run the appropriate notices in the paper as required by law as to the creditors. If the other heirs did not want the house, you would get them to sign a consent agreement. Then you would prepare the Administrators deed from you as the administrator to you individually. You should file the agreement with the deed.
If you did not follow any of these steps you might have some liability from creditors who might sue you as the administrator if you did not pay them. You should consult an attorney or you might have opened up a can of worms.
As far as the deed goes, as long as the bank is being paid they are probably happy although they could declare the loan in default if they think there's a risk.
Re: father passed, no will, married only his name on deed, i want the deed
From what you posted, you screwed up. As administrator,you had no right to do what you did without written assent in proper form from his wife. Get a lawyer right away.
Re: father passed, no will, married only his name on deed, i want the deed
From what you posted, you screwed up. As administrator,you had no right to do what you did without written assent in proper form from his wife. Get a lawyer right away.
Re: father passed, no will, married only his name on deed, i want the deed
From what you posted, you screwed up. As administrator,you had no right to do what you did without written assent in proper form from his wife. Get a lawyer right away.
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