Related to the thread My newly dead uncle – a prize in his Crackerjack house?
Briefly, a reclusive uncle has died who never married or had kids kids. One of my cousins and I am going into his house tomorrow to look over his stuff, see if we can find anything of value. We really don’t know whether we will find a checking account with a couple hundred bucks, or a stock portfolio with a couple hundred million. Odds favor the former, however, as he didn’t even own his house – the landlord contacted my cousin by using my uncle’s emergency contact information when the body was discovered.
My uncle has several living siblings, but they are all in their 70s and 80s and not physically capable of doing all the work and errands associated with cleaning out the house, making funeral arrangements, etc. The dead uncle was also some kind of family black sheep, and our best guess at the moment is that they’re not interested in ponying up money voluntarily to cover expenses related to all this.
So, assuming we don’t find a will, or enough assets to cover the expenses of hiring a lawyer to get access to his accounts, what legal obligations do we have to deal with this situation? I know I should talk to a lawyer, but if we find no assets, I don’t really want to spend the money to talk to a lawyer. I met the man twice in my life – he is a stranger to me.
Do his siblings have any greater legal obligations than us nephews? Would the county bury him if unclaimed and search for family members to bill?
He is in Cook County, IL.
Are we obliged to do anything at all? I personally guess no.
From past experience, we’re guessing that hiring a lawyer to handle all the paperwork, and paying for a cremation, will cost 2-3 grand. So we’re trying to figure out how to handle this if we don’t find any evidence that his estate will have enough money to cover that.
I’ve suggested that we can simply step back and wash our hands of the situation. My sister is completely appalled by this suggestion.