Legal Question in Real Estate Law in District of Columbia

Re: deed of trust

I am a bit confused. Is the property in DC?

You indicate that Sister dies leaving house to her Mother--I presume there is a will? You say that son is administrator of the mother's estate-yet mother is alive? What authority does son have to do anything? Unless son has a power of attorney, or some other authority, if mother inherited this property from daughter, it is hers-period. Mother should contact an attorney where the property is located.

Re: deed of trust

I agree with the previous answer. The applicable law is that of the jurisdiction where the house is situated.

Here is an answer based on California law, which is probably pretty close to D.C. law on most major concepts involved here. I think I understand that the mother is still living, so the son is only the prospective administrator. A living person can always change their will or their revocable trust to change their designation of executor or successor trustee, so one can't say with certainty that the son will be the executor or trustee when the mother dies.

Further, the son cannot just "decide" to add a name to title. Adding, removing or changing names on the title (not the "deed") to real property is a formal, structured process that requires, among other things, that the person giving a share of title to someone else actually have that share of title to give. You simply can't give someone - yourself or anyone else - a 50% interest in real property if you don't have a 50% (or more) interest. The attempt to do so has no effect, and creating and recording documents that suggest it happened is a fraud and the documents are VOID. As the saying goes, "He who sells what isn't his'n, must buy it back or go to prison."

As the prior answer says, a person can deal with someone else's property if he holds a valid power of attorney, but abuse of the power of attorney may also be fraud.

The factual investigation of this potentially messy situation should begin, I think, with inquiry into the administration of the deceased sister's estate. It seems to me that whoever was the executor or administrator here didn't fully carry out his or her duties. The proper administration of the deceased sister's estate should have ended with unquestioned and undivided title to the house in the mother's name, and no one else's, as I understand the facts. So, how do we jump from mother being the sole and unquestioned owner of the house, to son, as a mere expecting administrator of a future estate, having any right, title or interest to peddle to anyone, especially to himself or himself and wife? This is pretty smelly, and as I say, the inquiry should start with the handling of the deceased sister's estate, which seems to have gone awry.