Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Texas
Texas Probate
My son and daughter's mother passed away May 2005. Her will leaves her property to them. The house she lived in has no value due to its condition, but the land (3 acres) does. My daughter has agreed she wants her brother to have title to the land.
My questions are (1) What is the best type of probate to file? (2) The probate is complicated by the fact their mother left quite a bit of unsecured credit card debt and we found made no payments a year before her death. So, nearly five years have passed since a payment was made. The statute of limitations on unsecured debt in Texas is four years, so what is usually the court's position on this? Will each creditor have to be notified? A notice placed in the newspaper? 3) My son has a copy of his mother's will; neither he nor my daughter have found the ''original,'' and the attorney who drew up the will does not have it. Will the court accept a copy? 4) Is there anything my son can do, using an attorney, to keep down unnecessary costs, as the wrong type of probate filing would do, plus avoid delays due to errors? (5) Will title to the land be made to both my son and daughter and then my daughter does a quit claim deed or how does that work? Thank you for your advice.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Texas Probate
There's quite a few questions in there. First, If more than four years lapses, it becomes very difficult to probate a will. Second, if the original can't be found, then the law presumes it was destroyed by the testator. Third, you didn't mention how the deceased came into the property in the first place, did she inherit it? Buy it? Or ? Finally, what is the final objective? Clear title to the land? Sell the land, or ?
You have a number of different options depending on the answer.
Re: Texas Probate
Your children really need to go talk with a good probate attorney in the county where their mother's property is located since that is where the probate must be done.
I'm not sure what you mean "wrong type of probate filing". The debts will have to be evaluated on an individual basis. With some work, a copy can be used in place of the original Will in a probate. A good attorney will be able to explain all of this to them.
They need to act immediately. Wills "expire" 4 years after death. While the estate can still be settled after that it gets much more complicated and expensive.
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