Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Massachusetts
Return of property
My daughter's father passed away 2 years ago (she was 12 at the time) He left NO will. There are a few items that my daughter would like to retrieve from her dads girlfriend and we have asked a few times with no luck. There is a violin that was her Grandfathers and then passed down to her dad. She really wants that violin but it is in the possesion of her dads Girlfriend. Do we have any legal rights to that violin? Since it was in ''my'' family and it should belong to my daughter now. My daughter has not received anything of her dads that he owned. What do the laws state on such matters without taking her to court. I wanted to solve this without court costs. What can be done?
Thank you,
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Return of property
Since your daughter's father died and left no Will, his estate would pass to his heirs at law according to the laws of intestacy in Massachusetts. Since he was not married to his girlfriend she has no claim on any of the items in his estate. If he left other children surviving him they would also share in his estate. Of course, there is still the matter of obtaining the proerpty in the girlfriend's possession. The most certain way to obtain the property would be to commence a probate action in court. Once the probate estate was opened you could take formal channels to cause the girlfriend to part with his property. If you do not wish to go to court, then you are left with using your own powers of persuasion. Although you wish to avoid going to court, unless you can convince the girlfried to part with his property you may have no choice but to resort to a formal probate action.
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