Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Wisconsin

Your answer will depend the terms of your husband's will, how the property is titled, and whether or not the land is marital property. In WI, if he died without a will and you were his wife at the time of death, and were also the mother of all of his children, the entire estate would go to you under the laws of intestate succession. Half would go to you and the other half divided between his children, however, if you were not the mother of all of his children. On the other hand, a will or living trust could overcome either of these rules and could alone determine who would get the property. There are also forms of title which could provide for you or anyone else to automatically inherit the property, even if your name is not on the title now. Finally, if the home is marital property, you may have options to elect against the will (or intestate rules) and still obtain a portion of it from the estate. Marital property can include solely titled property of one spouse, depending upon how it was acquired or what sort of funds (marital or nonmarital) were used to purchase or maintain it. Determining if it is marital property as well as your rights is therefore a complex job for an experienced real estate or probate lawyer to determine, after you have provided him with all the above facts in detail.

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