I am soul heir to my Mom's estate & have a will to that effect. There is no one else alive that can contest it as family & everything pretty much came from my Dad's side of the family (also deceased - as is my only sibling, a brother who died in 1981). I am being bullied by my lawyer's assistant about having to have an estate account and that I have to keep receipts and "I do not have the right to just go out and buy anything I want". Which I have not done, nor had planned to do. I tried to tell her that insurance payments, real property and payable on death accounts do not go through probate but she threatens me and almost seems to be trying to scare me about having to have an estate account. I opened one but am thinking I may just write myself a check out of it because all of it is from insurance. The funeral expenses are being taken care of (still waiting for a cause of death since 2/2/09 but the funeral home has an insurance policy in hand large enough to cover it with some left over). There is 300 acres of land involved so no one has to worry at the lawyer's office about getting paid. The funeral home isn't even worried about being paid because this is the 3rd family member that they have buried and have always been paid. Also, I've read several things about not having to use my assets to pay Mom's bills and there is a credit card due with a company I sued & am not supposed to have contact with. Do I have to pay them? There is also someone that is being evicted and is tying things up because he can get legal aide and not have to pay any fees. Is there a way to make him pay because he is costing me money & I will not just give him 9 acres he has not paid for? Thanks for any help.

Life insurance if you are the listed benificiary then that comes directly to you, not into the estate.

As for the property, depends on how it is deeded, if you were listed on the deed properly it will go to you without going into probate, but if you are not on the deed, you have to send it though probate.

Also other money, such as money in their bank accounts not in joint with you, all go into an estate account, and the esate account will pay out bills on the home, bills to clear the esastate and more.

Even refunds from the electric deposiit and more come payable to the estate

Have you published a notice to creditors? Until the requisite period for creditors to make their claims is over, you never know for sure what the final accounting will look like. And in any event, without an estate account, doing such an accounting would be more difficult. The conversation might go something like this:


lawyer's assistant: Ok. What did you spend on administering the estate?

you: Well, Let's see. I spent $6,000 on taxes. Something like that, I don't remember exactly.

lawyer's assistant: Do you have a receipt?

you: It's somewhere in this pile, I think.

lawyer's assistant: And where did you get the money to pay that bill?

you: Out of my pocket. I paid cash.

...

lawyer's assistant: But all of these expenses amount to $12,343.16 You'r mom only had $3,115 in the bank when she died. Where did the rest of the money come from?

you: My bank account.

A book-keeper's nightmare, in other words. :)