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Okay, I'll try to be brief. My mother-in-law died last year. My spouse is her only next of kin. She was divorced from her husband long ago (and he's dead too), she had no other kids, siblings, aunts, uncles, no one else at all. I know, pathetic. Anyway, we just got a letter from a lawyer that was in her mail. Apparently someone who died a year and a half before her and left her some money. My spouse just called the lawyer's office but the lawyer wasn't in so we have to wait till Tuesday for an answer. My question is this - is he entitled to the money as her next of kin? It's no problem to show them her death certificate as my spouse handled all the arrangements. There was no will or probate with my MIL since she didn't have any assets to speak of - no real estate of any kind, etc. She left my spouse as her beneficiary on her life insurance and retirement accounts which he already cashed out months ago. Any insight would be appreciated. It's not a huge sum of money but of course it would be nice if my spouse could get it.
Probably not since it was not distributed and is still in the estate of the deceased. Whoever is executor of that estate is responsible for ensuring the funds get into the appropriate hands per the will. So even if your MIL was alive at the time of the death, the executor needs to follow the terms of the will and you MIL is not able to claim it now.
My question is this - is he entitled to the money as her next of kin?
No.
Quote:
Any insight would be appreciated.
When MIL didn't collect the money (for nearly any reason)...
the cash made a U turn back to the estate to be distributed
(probably to the next blood relative in line after MIL)
When MIL didn't collect the money (for nearly any reason)...the cash made a U turn back to the estate to be distributed (probably to the next blood relative in line after MIL)
hth
The check was cut recently so it hasn't 'technically' made a u turn yet but I know what you mean figuratively speaking. I don't know who the executor is but this is someone who was single with no spouse or kids of her own. I think what happened is she left whatever money she had to friends from church like my MIL. There was actually a letter from this same lawyer in with my MIL's mail from the time she entered the hospital - it was asking for my MIL's help in finding any blood relatives. Eh, what will be will be. Like I said, it's not a huge sum of money anyway. We'll see what the response is on Tuesday.
It will depend on the will and state laws. Our wills name first benefactors and alternate benefactors if the first benefactors have deceased. Nothing in the will says it would not go to the heirs of the alternate benefactors if they were deceased. That is where I would expect it to go. It would be up to the executor of the will to very what was required.
I would expect that the money would go to your mother's estate if the will did not name any alternate benefactors.
I thought I'd give an update. It took awhile (as obvious from the date of my original post) but we did get the money. We had to send in documentation proving my spouse was my MIL's only child and beneficiary of her retirement/life insurance money along with her death certificate of course. So that paperwork had to be reviewed, then the lawyer had to check with the executor of the estate, blah, blah, blah. Add to that people being out on vacation, etc. and we just recently received the check. What added even more time was that the lawyer had to go back to the executor a second time to see if he was okay with the check being made out directly to my spouse instead of his mother's estate. If that wasn't agreed to, I think it's safe to assume we wouldn't have seen the money. Then my spouse would've had to go to the county (the county where his mother lived) courthouse and get some documentation from them saying there weren't any claims against her estate and that he would be entitled to any money owed to her. When my spouse explained to the lawyer that we no longer live in the state his mother did and that going to that courthouse wouldn't be possible, she said she'd see about getting the check made out to him. My MIL did owe credit card debt so I think if that had to be done, the judge would've sent the money their way. So, anyway, yay! We got the $!
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