There are procedures which allow for execution of a Will or Codicil where an individual is unable to sign. The person executing the Will or Codicil must be at least eighteen years old and legally competent. The Will or Codicil should be dated.
There must be conformity with all the requirements under Maryland Law and it is advisable to have a Will or Codicil prepared by an attorney. Most Wills have a provision which revokes all prior Wills, so generally the Will with the latest date is admitted to probate.
However, after a person dies, all original Wills that have been found should be presented to the office of the Register of Wills. A Codicil is an amendment to an original Will. There may be more than one Codicil. After death all Codicils should be presented to the office of the Register of Wills along with all original Wills. An interested person may file caveat proceedings to challenge a particular Will or Codicil on various grounds, including lack of testamentary capacity at the time the document was executed, undue influence or fraud.
There are strict time limits which apply to filing such proceedings and formal procedures must be followed. It is generally advisable to obtain legal counsel for such matters. In most cases, no. If there are no known blood relatives but there are stepchildren, the property would be distributed to the stepchildren, in equal shares. It is only if there are no known blood relatives or stepchildren that an estate may end up being distributed to the Board of Education in the City or County where the decedent lived.
Nevertheless, it is advisable to leave a Will because you may not wish to leave your property in the way or in the amounts the general Intestacy statutes provide. The estate should be opened in the county or City where the decedent was domiciled generally where the primary residence was located.
Some estates settle or close within a few months, or even a few weeks. Others can take a year or longer. The process involves a good many steps, all of them necessary to move assets from the ownership of a deceased individual into that of a living beneficiary. The decedent's taxes and outstanding debts must be paid before this can happen. All this often chugs along under the supervision of the court, and this can further slow things down. The process can stall entirely for a while when there are complications.
The executor, sometimes referred to as the personal representative, is in charge of managing the estate through the probate process. Sometimes, an attorney might be involved as well with larger estates. Where the personal representative lives in relation to where the attorney is located might not seem like a big deal in this day and age, what with all the modern technology at our fingertips.
But the distance between the personal representative and the attorney can indeed make a difference. A personal representative can drop by to take care of problems relatively quickly when closely located to the attorney's office.
But quick meetings just can't happen when the personal representative lives far from the office or in another state. And keep in mind that almost all documents that are filed with the court require the original signature of the personal representative.
Faxed or emailed signatures won't do. Probate will take longer as the number of estate beneficiaries increases, particularly if they, too, live far from the attorney's office or from the personal representative.
This is simply a function of the time it takes to send multiple documents back and forth between numerous people who are located in many different places. It's unlikely that any two beneficiaries will agree on everything that must happen with an estate, let alone three, four, or more of them. Some beneficiaries might even hire their own attorneys to monitor the probate process and these types of attorneys tend to nitpick over every action the executor takes.
Suffice it to say that the more beneficiaries an estate has and the more they find fault with the process, the longer probate will take. A will contest is a legal proceeding that's initiated to invalidate a last will and testament. Will contests are based on one of four arguments, or sometimes a combination of them:.
A probate proceeding will remain open for a very long time if a will contest occurs. These issues are typically resolved after lengthy court trials. Payment of taxes and a decedent's debts are a major component of the process because transfers to beneficiaries can only occur after all this has been accomplished. And payment to creditors can take some time, depending on state law. Most states require that all known creditors must be sent notice, letting them know of the death and how long they have to make claims for the money owed to them.
Some states also require that a notice for unknown creditors be published in a local newspaper, sometimes more than once for a period of weeks. The deadline for filing creditor claims can vary considerably from state to state, from just days in Texas, to as long as seven months in New York, and an entire year in Massachusetts.
This might not affect smaller estates, however, if state law includes provisions for summary or simplified proceedings for these estates. Each state has different rules for notifying potential creditors.
In some states, publication of a notice in local newspapers for a set time period is sufficient. In others, the executor must attempt to identify and notify each creditor individually.
After receiving notice, creditors have a state-specified deadline to submit claims to the estate. In Florida, creditors have three months. In Texas, they have four months.
In California, the deadline is 60 days from the notice date or four months from when the estate was opened. An executor cannot settle the estate until all taxes are paid. Often, this step requires consultation with accountants and attorneys. First, the executor must file the deceased's final income tax return and pay any final income taxes. Additionally, if the estate includes accounts or properties that continue to generate earnings during probate, the estate itself may owe income taxes.
Further, the executor may need to pay estate and inheritance taxes. For those subject to this tax, the executor has nine months to file a tax return, with the option to obtain a further six-month extension.
Thereafter, the Internal Revenue Service takes between six and nine months to process the return and send a closing letter.
Additionally, many states, including New York, Connecticut, Maine, and Delaware, have their own estate or inheritance taxes. Handling a loved one's estate can seem overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be.
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