Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Georgia

You say that you are the only child living and that your father was not married. Well and good but are you also the sole heir? Did any of your deceased siblings have children?

Most important - when did your father die? Where did he live at the time of his death? What assets did your father own (just ballpark estimate)? How were the assets titled and were they jointly owned with anyone else? What debts, if any, did your father have?

The answers dictate what you will do. I would strongly suggest that you contact a probate attorney who practices in the county where your father resided at the time of his death and pay for a 1-2 hour consult. You may or may not need to hire an attorney for help probating an estate but you at least need a consult. If you cannot afford that then go talk to the county clerk for the probate court in the county in which your father resided.

Either way, be prepared to come with a list of assets and debts and list of possible heirs. The attorney will be able to discuss the intestacy laws with you. While the clerk cannot give legal advice to you, he or she should be able to tell you whether it is necessary to probate an estate for your father or not.

In general, your father's assets would pass to his children - you and any other siblings. If any children have died then the children of the dead child take their dead parent's share. If none of the deceased siblings had any children then you get it all.

However, this assumes there are probate assets. Many things are non-probate assets - jointly titled land or bank accounts or beneficiary designated assets like life insurance or retirement. Jointly titled assets pass to the survivor if owned with a right of survivorship; beneficiary designated assets pass to the named beneficiary. And even if there are probate assets, what about debts? Heirs generally do not get assets until the bills have been paid.

The job of the personal representative for any estate is to oversee the orderly transfer of assets from the dead to the living and to pay all just debts. So you need to figure out what your father owned and owed. If there is not enough money in the estate to pay all bills, then there is a specific order for paying bills.

This should be enough to get you started.

Ms. Hunter has giving you a very thorough answer. Start with finding a lawyer, then file to become the administrator of the estate (if Georgia was where he lived when he died). This will put you in charge of his assets, but will also make you responsible for them to any other heirs who may be out there.