Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Indiana

Property deeded 8 months before death but not filed.

When a property is deeded to someone in a case where the Deed has been notorized and signed; is it necessary to include the property as part of the decedant's estate if the decedant's attourney did not register the deed with the name of the new property owners name? Example: Mr.Tom Smith deeds a property to his son Bill Smith. He hands the deed to Bill and tells him everything has been done, and his attourny will file the recording of the deed. The attourny never gets the paperwork processed. Eight months later, Mr. Tom Smith dies. Four months later, Mr. Bill Smith makes an attempt to borrow against the property that now belongs to him, because the reason Mr. Tom Smith transfered ownership was in fact because Mr. Tom Smith had paid the original down payment on the house with money lended him by his son Mr. Bill Smith; at that time, the agreement was to grant the father a life residence in the home until he no longer wanted to live there, and at that time the house would be deeded to the son by the father.

Since the father passed and now has his estate in probate, the question is, does the property here that was deeded to the son by the father thus become part of the current probated estate of the father?


Asked on 2/28/06, 8:52 am

1 Answer from Attorneys

Marc V. Taiani AAAL - Allegheny Attorneys At Law

Re: Property deeded 8 months before death but not filed.

Here's the deal, you have a mess, the best way to deal with this is to allow both a Settlement Company (a company that specializes in real estate transactions) and a different estate attorney to resolve this headache. Failure to immediately act may make your title to the property non-transferable.

Call my office at your earliest convenience in order to have this problem resolved.

Sincerely,

Marc Taiani, Esquire

AAAL - Allegheny Attorneys At Law

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Answered on 2/28/06, 9:00 am


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