Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Arizona

Re: husband has inherited his parents estate

I am sorry to hear about the loss of your in-laws, but I am glad to see that you and your husband are "thinking ahead" regarding protection of your assets. Your question brings up a number of issues that could be compartmentalized: (1) Your husband's inheritance is probably his separate property, and is not community property. The default presumption in Arizona is that when a married person receives property via "devise or decent", that is his separate property. (2) There are number of things you could do now to help you retain those assets in the event of his death. (3) If he does not have a will, then the property will pass through a set of probate laws called �the intestacy statutes�. Those statutes say that the surviving spouse (you, in this scenario) receives 100% of the decedent spouse�s (your husband�s) estate, so long as he either had no children, or so long as all of his children were also your children. However, if the decedent spouse had children from outside the marriage (meaning if he has children that are not also your children), then the surviving spouse (you) gets 50% and the children from his previous relationship get the other 50%. (4) Another thing he could do is �commingle� the property he has received from his parents, which would turn it from being his separate property to being the community property of you and him both. Commingling of assets happens in numerous ways, over a period of time, such as depositing money inherited from his parents into a joint bank account he has with you, or spending that money to pay your mortgage and other community debts, etc. (5) The best option would be for him to draft a trust, naming you as the beneficiary of his estate. This way, you could avoid the hassle and expense of probating his estate.

Anyhow, good luck with your situation. I hope it works out well for you both. Just FYI: My law firm's website has an online weekly newsletter on which we publish many articles and case briefs on these types of topics: www.tahanlaw.com/Arizona_Business_Newsletter

Sincerely,

Raya Tahan

www.tahanlaw.com