Home Is Where The Heart Is: Dealing Your Family Home After A Death
When you lose a beloved parent, the burden of dealing with that death nearly always falls to the surviving family members. In some cases, those family members are comprised of you and another sibling or two. You will want to ensure that your parent's wishes are followed according to their will, but in some cases, the way the will is worded can cause some confusion, and that might only add to your grief. Read on to learn more about what happens to the family home during and after probate.
An Even Division?
A lot of times, your parent wants to be fair about how they want their estate divided upon their death, and you may find that your parent's will simply leaves everything to any surviving spouse, and is evenly divided to each child if there is no spouse still living. In other words, if you have a brother and sister and both of your parents are dead or divorced, the estate is to be divided evenly between you three siblings. This division can work well when dealing with things like jewelry, furniture or cash, but not so well when it comes to the family home.
The Family Home
In many cases, this particular piece of the estate carries with it a lot of emotions. Families that have fond memories of the home may have very specific ideas about what should be done with it, and sometimes you may not agree with your siblings. Since this is a single bequest, there are limited ways to deal with it. You must first get through probate, however, and it may be up to you to take certain actions pertaining to the home during probate.
Maintaining the Property
Probate has some requirements for ensuring that the home stays safe and in good repair during probation, so speak the real estate or probate attorney to find out how to handle details like:
1. Keeping certain utilities running, and turning off others.
2. Keeping the grounds maintained.
3. Doing any needed maintenance, such as systems maintenance or replacing broken windows.
4. Making an inventory of the contents of the home.
5. Arranging for a professional appraiser to value the home.
Choices for Dividing the Home
Needless to say, all of you must come to a decision about what to do with the home. You don't want to create a situation where the choice is left up to the probate court. Here are a few ideas to help you decide:
1. Do Nothing: Well, almost nothing. You can just have the deed changed to signify that you and your siblings all jointly own the home. You should make some decisions about how to deal with property taxes, maintenance and upkeep and so on, as well. A variation of this could include renting the home out to one of you or a third party, or one of you might live there and pay all maintenance expenses instead of rent.
2. Sell It: If you can all agree, this can put cash in all of your pockets. A variation of this is to sell it to one of your siblings. You can use the appraised value as a guideline, and the other siblings will give up their share of the home in return for either cash or other property.
Speak with an estate law office like Wright Law Offices, PLLC to learn more.