Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in New York

My wife's mom passed in Sep 2012...she had very little savings and what she had was no joint acct with my wife..she had no income after her death and really none while alive except 1000.00 a month social security.

She had a will that said we are to sell the house and spilt the money between her five children, we did this. The house sold for 100k and was fair market valued at 125,000...we sold her car for 1000.00 which was valued at 2000.00.

The estate ( my wife) set up a EIN# we deposited the money from the house and car into this and cut 5 checks and closed the account.

My questions if you could help are this;

1) We received a 1099-S form but the attorney messed to up and listed my wife's ss # instead of the estates, I will call them Monday to have this fixed.

2) Do we need to file the 1041 ? The way I read it is we do not have to IF she had income less than 600.00, from my understanding the house and car are NOT income ?

3) She hasn't been required to file income tax returns for the last 10 or so years so we shouldn't have to do anything with this either, correct ?

Thank you so much..we really were unprepared for the best way to handle this and everything to do with the estate...it makes us better aware of what someone will have to do for us some day...


Asked on 2/03/13, 6:24 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Walter LeVine Walter D. LeVine, Esq.

If the house was sold in the estate's name, a 1041 must be filed. The $600 figure is not profit, but sales price. You must file the return even if the property was sold at a loss.

Read more
Answered on 2/03/13, 11:01 am


Related Questions & Answers

More Probate, Trusts, Wills & Estates questions and answers in New York