Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Virginia
probate a will
I am one of the excutor's in my mom's will and I live in Tennessee and my mom's estate is in Virginia.. do we have to probate the will? my mom's estate is over 100,000.00 but less than 150,000.00. We cannot seem to get bonded.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: probate a will
The will must be probated in Virginia. If there
is more than one executor, at least one of you should be able to secure bond for the probate.
Re: probate a will
Probating a will is not really an option. It is
one of the duties of an executor. Part of
probating the will is placing a public notice
to invite any creditors of your mother to come
forward and speak now or forever hold their
peace about any unpaid bills. That is one of
many reasons why it is not up to you to
probate or not probate. You have a legal
obligation to pay off any of your mother's
VALID debts before doing anything else. So it is
not something that you can decide whether you
want to do it or don't want to do it.
You said that your mother's estate is in Virginia.
I ASSUME that that means that your mother died as
a citizen of Virginia. It is not the same
question as whether she owns property in Virginia.
The will must be probated in the county where
she was a citizen at her death (meaning her
primary residence, her domicile).
Somebody must be executor. Therefore, the court
should cooperate in helping you find some way
to qualify.
However, you must have an agent or attorney
or executor in Virginia. It does create a lot
of problems if there is no one in Virginia.
Frankly, this is another reason why a trust is
often a better idea than a will.