Legal Question in Family Law in Virginia
safe deposit box
At the death of my parents there was a safe deposit box containing silver dollars. The box was in their names and a brother's. Several years after their death he(brother) removed their names and added his wife's along with his. These silver dollars were accumulated over many years by my father from premiums given him for each piece of farm equipment he sold for New Holland. My question: are he and his wife entitled to these silver dollars or should they be divided among all the survivors of the estate? The box was not mentioned in the will; nor is there any proof that he contributed to the collection; infact he never went into the box until after their death. Thank you.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: safe deposit box
Morally, one might say that this particular brother at least arguably had a duty to share this accumulation of silver dollars with the other beneficiaries named in the will(despite there being no reference to them in this document), however, from a strictly legal perspective, if he alone held joint title to them in this safe deposit box with his parents, then upon their decease, title to the coins would have passed directly to him outside of the will, and he then would have been under no legal obligation to share them with the other beneficiaries named in the will.
Re: safe deposit box
The answer is that it depends. If the contents of the boy were owned equally amongst the named parties than they each had only a share of what was inside. If they shared equally then when that person died his share would pass to his heirs. That person's share would not automatically go to the others. If they owned the contents jointly with rights of survivorship then when one of the owners dies, the coins become the property of the others.
Good luck.
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