Not sure if here or IMHO. California law if necessary.
Deadbeat dad owes close to $50K in back support. Judgement in hand for years and the DA is collecting the money. Of course DD pleads poverty through hiding money and assets so only pays the minimum. However, DD will get a huge inheritance eventually. More than enough to pay off the back child support. As soon as it hits his hands assume he will do his best to hide it and tell the DA he’s broke.
So here’s the question(s). Can the mother to whom the debt is owed go to the probate judge (claim is against the beneficiary not to the estate) and say, “Judge, here is the judgement and order to pay me $50K in back child support (aside: maybe the cause of the debt is important?). So give me $50K of his inheritance as you transfer it to him.” (I’m assuming the DD is also the executor.) Or can she go to a different judge during probate, explain what is going on and have the judge freeze his assets so he can’t hide the money? Can the DA’s office somehow intercept the amount due from the inheritance?
First it would be neccesary to know that he is actually getting an inheritance. That will not be made public knowledge until the person dies and the will goes into probate. Many people who think they are getting an inheritance don’t get as much as they thought they would, if anything. So you will not know the amount he is getting until then.
Wouldn’t she already have a judgment against him? Only once the person dies can she find out if he is getting anything and enforce that judgment.
But yes, this is one way people finally get their money owed.
If DD (and his team) was savvy and already hiding wealth, he could protect that money after death in any number of ways. And if Mom (and her team) is also savvy, she could potentially dig up something. But the longer it takes, the harder it will be to pry the funds loose.
But if DD didn’t go to much trouble and has a more conventional estate, the scale tips back toward mom and her judgment.
If you can figure out who the executor is, can you serve them with the judgement? (Once the person is deceased or just about?) Especially if it is a lawyer, I cannot imagine the executor willing to risk his license to help avoid paying the debt? What is the obligation of an executor when they are told that the money they are about to transfer is instead claimed through a judgement?
Can you serve either the executor or the bank about to receive the money?
The inheritance once probate is I imagine a matter of public record, so it’s not like the Deadbeat can claim he did not receive the money. What is the process at that time? Would a judge send him to jail for contempt if he failed to pay up?
And I assume all legal expenses by the plaintiff get added to the total due…
I don’t think it’s exactly the estate being forced to pay a beneficiary’s judgement - it’s more like it gets seized before it actually gets into the beneficiary’s control. My mother once sued a mechanic in small claims court and won. They refused to pay until the marshal showed up. I guess they though they would never have to pay, but the marshal apparently was going to stand there and seize any cash that came into the business until he got the judgement plus his fee. But it wouldn’t have been the customers paying the judgement - they would have paid the mechanic and it would then be seized from him before he had a chance to do anything else with it.
Mom should consult a lawyer at some point- I’m sure there is something she can do but the procedure may differ by jurisdiction.
That’s what I was thinking. The estate is in a bank account, and the bank must then transfer it to DD as inheritance. I was under the impression that the bank could be served that “anything you must pay to X goes to me instead up to this amount.”
IIRC, the Goldmans used this tactic against OJ Simpson any time he earned any money, attaching it before he could be paid by serving whoever was going to pay him(?) which is why he chose not to use legal methods to retreive some of his belongings.
(I kind of wonder whether his mansion after his death was also used to pay them off. Until then it was protected by homestead rues in Florida.)
It also occurs to me - if Mr. Moneybags is the child’s grandpa and dies without mentioning the grandchild in the will, can the child not sue the estate to have the will overturned?
Considering the son’s history of non-payment, it should not be difficult to demonstrate a tendency that he wielded undue influence on Mr. M during any writing of the will to ensure that the grandchild was disinherited. True, a grandchild is not automatically entitled to a share, but generally very well off people make some provision for those down the family tree. (Except maybe J P Getty)
If nothing else, it will stall the execution of the estate and allow lawyers access to the details of the estate, such as which banks to serve to demand payment of outstanding debt…?
I don’t believe there’s any sort of automatic hold that gets put on the money. The executor of the estate can transfer the money to DD regardless of any judgements against DD. There’s not a check somewhere that blocks the transfer if the person has a judgement. Perhaps the executor is supposed to check for judgements against the heir, but I’m not sure how often the executor does that. Maybe if the executor is a lawyer they would check before making a distribution, but if it’s just a family friend then they wouldn’t know to do that. Life insurance companies may check for judgements before making a payout. I would guess that the mother would need to somehow let the probate court know that DD has an outstanding judgement. Sounds like a situation for mother to talk with a lawyer to make sure everything is in place before the money is transferred to DD and disappears.
Probably not in this case - even if the rich relative is grandpa, for one reason or another , rich grandpa hasn’t been helping mom support the kid all these years. There might be all sorts of reasons for that, but it’s unlikely to be undue influence which basically means manipulating someone in a way that causes them to write a will they otherwise wouldn’t have. It doesn’t include manipulating the person into never having had any relationship with the potential beneficiary, such as telling your parent for years that you aren’t the kid’s father or hiding the existence of the kid from your parent .
One reason to make sure the executor knows there’s a judgement against DD is because the executor would be opening themselves up to litigation if they ignore the judgement. Mother could sue the executor for the value of the judgement if it went to DD instead. DD may not care about being sued, but the executor likely would care a lot.
When the person dies, a case should be created in the probate court of the county. These cases can typically be viewed online. Mother should find the probate site for her county by searching something like “probate court countyname california”. The site may offer a way to get notifications when new cases are created for a person. If so, she can use that to be notified when the case is created on the person’s death. If she can’t create a notification herself, a lawyer may have a way to be notified when a case is created. This way she can get into the process as early as possible to ensure she can collect on the judgement.
The executor is supposed to put a notice in a paper of public record that the person has died and asking any creditors to come forward. There may be a way to get notifications for those as well.
Except there is no judgement against the person that died so Mom is not a creditor against the estate but against someone that will receive part of the estate. So the question is does the estate have to pay off judgements against beneficiaries or is it a matter of sneaking in after DD receives his inheritance (or is due his inheritance) but before he can hide the assets.
The notifications are just so that she knows when the person died so that she knows when to get involved. It would be so that she knows when to let the probate court and executor know that there is an outstanding judgement against one of the heirs. The estate would pay off any creditors and judgements for the estate itself. If there’s anything left over, it would go to the heirs. But if one of the heirs has a judgement against them, then the executor would need to take the extra steps to make sure that the proper legal process is followed before making distributions to that heir. But that’s only if the executor knows about the judgement against the heir or thinks to check.
For instance, I think that life insurance companies check for outstanding judgements against the beneficiary before making a payout. So if the payout was $200k and the beneficiary has an outstanding judgement of $50k, then $50k is garnished and the beneficiary actually gets $150k. But that’s something that insurance companies take the extra step to do because they want to avoid as many complications as possible. They don’t want to get sued because they didn’t garnish the payout. A family friend being the executor may not think to take that step.
“Garnish” is the word I’m thinking of. As I mentioned, the process the Goldman family used IIRC was to get a specific court order for each situation, against anyone paying money to OJ, to demand they hand the money to the Goldman family instead. I assume some judge will issue that order if requested. The trick is to intercept the money before it is handed over. It required them to be on top of what money is going to him; obviously, had he gone to court to demand the stolen items back, that would have been months of litigation allowing the Goldmans to step in.
If DD is the executor (and sole heir?) presumably he still has to follow the official process of filing the will and ensuring all debts to the estate are accounted for… which should take a certain amount of time.
Even if the child has a minimal case, would not contesting the will slow the disbursement process? And require the executor to answer in court with financial details?
Whatever. Too bad the mother and child did not end up on social assistance (or Meicare) since the welfare authorities would hunt the guy down like a wounded buffalo.
I recall an article about a gay man who “did a favour” for a lesbian couple with the assurance he would not be liable for child support. A decade later the one lady is being treated for cancer on Medicare, and the state welfare board told them that they were entitled to collect outstanding child support for the child to help pay back the medical costs. Promises to the father were irrelevant, if the artificial insemination is not done by a licensed medical facility, it does not exclude child support. The couple was told if they did not name the father, their child would be taken into state custody as they were unable to support her. The fellow was obliged to pay up 10 years of back child support. the law was relentless.
If he says he’s broke but he received assets from the estate, the judge would likely have many options of how to handle it. There will be a paper trail of what he received from the estate. He can’t simply deny he received the assets or says he doesn’t know what happened to the money. The judge would likely demand an accounting of what he received from the estate and what happened to it. I would imagine that not complying with that order would cause him significant legal troubles.
One thing mother should do is keep an eye on the public filings of the county where each person lives or has property. Search for “county clerk countyname california”. There will likely be a site where you can search for public records by name, including property records. Do look ups for the dying person and DD to see what property they have and what property has changed hands. Some sites have a way for you to be notified when new records are added for a specified name. Sometimes it’s called fraud guard. She may be able to setup notifications so that she’s automatically notified anytime there’s a new filing under their name. That may help her figure out that the estate distribution is in progress. Regardless of the inheritance, it could also help her figure out if any new properties come into DD’s name. One thing to look for is if any properties change hands from dying person to a trust. The DD may be keeping property in a trust rather than his own name so that it’s harder to figure out what assets are in his name.