A family I know is going through probate because their grandmother died and the house is in dispute. The daughter who lived there was supposed to buy it and the last two notes on the docket say Inventory issued and sheriffs return of personal notice on citation. What does that mean?
Guessing here, so discount accordingly.
The “inventory issued” suggests to me that the estate has been inventoried–ie, a list of all known assets and debts has been compiled, and possibly circulated to interested parties. May need to be approved by the court, or otherwise acted upon. I don’t do probate.
The sheriff’s return probably means that the sheriff…or actually a deputy…has served some type of process on somebody involved. IE, the deputy delivered a particular legal form to the person, which gives them formal notice of some pending legal action, and likely designates a timeframe to respond/appear.
The bakcstory is, the grandmother died. One of her daughters and grandson is living there and has been for decades.
One of the daughters, who lives elsewhere, wants the house, the daughter who lives there wants to buy it.
Inventory was filed last week and the recent action, which I just posted happened yesterday.
I am hoping they get to keep the house but don’t understand legalise.
And thank you for your reply.
Did the grandmother died intestate? It would seem as though a will might clear up some of the questions as to the disposition of the estate.
Yeah, I don’t think there was a will. There are 4 daughters. The one who lives there wants to buy it and the one who doesn’t wants to sell it and split the proceeds, I believe.
Since the laws of intestate succession are going to vary from state to state, I’ll just share one that I went thru:
Spouse dies intestate. Under the laws of my state, half the estate went to the surviving spouse, and the other half in equal shares went to the four surviving children. If there had been no surviving spouse, then the estate would have gone to the four children, and then it would have been up to them to decide how to divvy it up.
As it turned out, after the estate was settled, one of them had the wherewithal to buy up the other three’s shares (and each of the other three was glad to get the money), so there wasn’t any squabbling. Thus, after all was said and done, the surviving spouse still had a one-half share, and one child had the other half.
Theoretically, though, I suppose the other three either separately or together could have sold their shares to anyone.
Doesn’t sound like a problem. A buyer is a buyer. Win-win. 