Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Pennsylvania

Your mother's estate needs to go through the probate process whether there is a Will or she passed away without a Will (intestate). There are multiple filings and notices that must be completed. How and what amount of the house, credit union account and other assets will pass to your wife depends upon how those assets were owned, what other beneficiaries there are, and if there are any outstanding creditors. "Co-owned" property, for example, can be legally owned in several different ways. Regarding taxes, there is the Pennsylvania Inheritance Tax, possible federal estate taxes and final income taxes.

This is really too much to explain in an email. I highly recommend that you contact an attorney for assistance. Feel free to call me at 215-367-5110, and I will walk you through the process. Regards, Scott Polsky

As noted by Attorney Polsky, this is too complicated a subject for an internet post. Your wife and any siblings need to see if a will can be located. There is no respository for wills that I am aware of. Look to see if the mother-in-law kept her important personal papers in one place. See if she had a safe deposit box (you will need a reprsentative from the probate court to be there if any box is found and needs opened). If your mother-in-law had an attorney, check with the attorney too. If your wife or her siblings cannot find a will, then the estate will pass as per the state intestacy laws. But someone still needs to probate the estate. If its your wife, then she should sit down with a probate attorney who practices in the county/state where your mother-in-law lived at the time of her death or owned land.

With regard to bank accounts, this is a non-probate asset. Bank accounts will pass to the other surviving joing account holder. Land may or may not be a probate asset depending on how it was owned. Was the land owned, if you know, between your wife and her mother as joint tenants with right of survivorship (there has to be language on the deed indicating this) or just by your wife and her mother? If you are not sure, go to the recorder of deeds' office in the county where the land is located and look at the deed.

If your wife and her mother owned as joint tenants with right of survivorship, then its a non-probate asset. However, if they owned as tenants in common, 1/2 of the land is your wife's already. The other 1/2 will have to go through probate and will pass as per your mother-in-law's will or to her heirs under the intestacy law (usually your wife and any siblings if your mother-in-law was not married at the time of her death). There will be inheritance taxes on property inherited by your wife from her mother.

The amount of tax will depend on what the item is and what all your wife has inherited. Besides inheritance taxes, final tax returns have to be filed by whomever is seeking to probate the estate for your mother-in-law. If your mother-in-law owed taxes at the time of her death, these will have to be paid from her estate assets.

Again, you do not indicate what all your mother-in-law owned besides the credit union account and 1/2 the land. That is why wour wife needs to talk to a probate attorney so that the situation can be reviewed in depth.