Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Massachusetts

If your parents died without a Will, then you and your sibliing can file a Petition for Administration of their estate. You only need to file a petition with a copy of the death certificate for the last parent that was alive. Their home, accounts etc will be probated through the Probate Court,. Either you, your sibling or both of you can seek be the administrator.

A small estate is one with a value of less than $15,000. Assuming there is more involved you need to file a formal petition. If you need assistance, please feel free to contact me.

What you are describing is not executing a will (which is making out and signing a will for yourself) but administering an estate. You do not need an attorney to probate an estate, but it is can be much easier with one, particularly if there are two estates to probate, or if you are out of state.

You may take the will, along with a petition for probate and certified copy of the death certificate and bond form, to the probate court in the county in which each lived. The court will then issue a notice to give to all heirs (you and your sibling in this case), and to publish in the newspaper. After the date stated in the notice you may request that the court appoint you (or whoever is named in the wills) as executor. The executor then has the authority and respobsibilty to pay all debts of the decedent, collect any amounts owed to him or her, and to distribue the remaining assets in accordance with the will. Creditors have up to one year from the date of death to file a claim against an estate, so you need to keep some funds on hand for that period.

Please let me know if I can assist you with this.

If there is real estate involved, you definitely will need an attorney to make sure that title to the house properly passes as the will directs. There are legal documents which will need to be drafted and recorded for that purpose.

Further, an experienced probate attorney can make the process considerably easier for you, and often for less of an expense than you might think. You probably have never probated an estate before -- experienced probate attorneys like myself handle numerous estates every year, and can make sure that you are taking the right steps in the right order.

Please feel free to contact me if I can be of assistance.