Help?

[tigertalk]

What is the name of your state? Florida
My father is very recently deceased leaving behind his 3 daughters and 4 grandchildren. As he left no will behind, my younger sister lives in the house that he shared with her. My family (my two daughters, myself and my husband) live on a piece of property in a house trailer that was in my father's name. I have lived there for 6 years. What my sister and I dread is because of our father having no will, are we going to end up homeless? He has some assets (cars, motorcycles) but he still owes near 50,000 on the house. Also, if the 3 sisters are in agreement about the trailer going to me, will the government step in and sell the home I have lived in from underneath me? Also, my parents divorced earlier this year and my mother was not able to retrieve her belongings prior to his passing. Will her possessions also end up on the probate chopping block?What is the name of your state?

 

[anteater]

From Commerce Clearing House:

If any part of a Florida decedent's estate is not effectively disposed of by will, the intestate share will be distributed in the following order and manner:

1. Surviving spouse. A surviving spouse is generally first in line to get any assets from the intestate estate. The amount a surviving spouse is entitled to, however, varies as follows:

If there is no surviving lineal descendant of the decedent, the surviving spouse gets the whole intestate estate.
If there are surviving lineal descendants of the decedent, and they are also all lineal descendants of the surviving spouse, the surviving spouse is entitled to the first $60,000 of the intestate estate, plus one-half of the intestate estate's remaining balance. Property used to satisfy the $60,000 must be valued at the fair market value on the date of distribution.
If there are surviving lineal descendants of the decedent, one or more of whom are not lineal descendants of the surviving spouse, the surviving spouse gets one-half of the intestate estate.

2. Heirs other than surviving spouse. Any part of the intestate estate not passing to the surviving spouse as indicated above, or the entire intestate estate if there is no surviving spouse, passes as follows to:

Decedent's lineal descendants.
Decedent's parent or parents equally.
Decedent's brothers and sisters and the descendants of any deceased siblings.
Decedent's grandparents or their children if both paternal or maternal grandparents are deceased. Half of the estate passes to the paternal grandparents if both survive, or to the surviving paternal grandparent or to the children of the paternal grandparents (i.e., decedent's aunts and uncles) if both are deceased. The other half passes to the maternal relatives in the same manner. If there is no surviving kin on either the paternal or maternal side, the entire estate passes to the relatives available on the surviving side in the same manner as described above.
As a next to last resort, the entire intestate estate goes to the kin of decedent's last deceased spouse as if the deceased spouse had survived decedent and then died intestate entitled to the estate (which means going through all of the above again).

No, the government is not going sell it. But your father's creditors need to be paid, and, if that requires selling the house trailer, then it will be sold by the estate's personal representative.

Retain an estate attorney, file to open probate, and start sorting things out legally.