Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Wisconsin

You are badly in need of a lawyer, who would have to run a title check to see how the home title was held. In your situation, the property either may or may not qualify as marital property. Sometimes, spouses have rights to opt against wills in WI, depending upon the factual history. Either way, the intestate succession laws in WI would normally give one half the value of estate property of folks without wills to their spouse. The other half would be divided equally among all of the person's children. That will not happen, however, until your lawyer starts a probate proceeding, leading to a court order for this division. Normally that would be accomplished via a public sale of the real estate and division of the proceeds, all done under the supervision of a probate court. You could be a bidder on such a sale, and end up with the property, with half of the net sale proceeds going to the son. In this scenario, however, you will never clear the title of the house without a probate court order, so all your payments will do you no good in the long run unless you take care of this loose end.

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