brother up to no good

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? NY


Greetings All,

My mother passed away 2 weeks ago, leaving no will. She owned a two family house. I live in one apartment with my husband; she, my brother, his daughter, her husband and their three children lived in the other. My brother has since kicked his daughter and her family out.

My brother coerced my mother to take out a loan against the house in 2001. (before this, there was no mortgage; we paid it off). The outstanding principal is $33,000.00. He has all the copies of the loan papers and he also took the deed, telling me that he cannot find them. My mother told me that he took the deed about two weeks before she died and that he was not assisting in making the payments toward the loan.

I was listed as her beneficiary on her life insurance and her bank account was left in trust to me. (These covered her funeral and burial expenses.)

I am afraid with him holding all the important papers for the house, that he will try to kick me out as well.

He does not have a job; he is receiving SSI and cannot possibly pay the amount necessary to maintain a home whereas my husband and I both work.

My mother wanted to go to a lawyer to straighten these issues out, but we never did. Please help as I don't know where to start.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

SO WHAT if brother has important papers about the house--that doesn't give him legal authority to do anything. The house is still owned by the mortgage company, so if you and your husband want to take over the payments, you should be the first one at the courthouse to file to become administrator of your mother's estate (IF she has any other assets that need to be probated--if she doesn't have any other assets, you still may want to file to be administrator just to have the legal authority to handle the mortgage transfer). Find out from the courthouse what the minimum amount of estate value must be before probate is required.

Mortgage company will probably agree to let you take over the payments since if there was no one to take over payments they would have to sell the home to try to get their money out of it, but they will deal only with the legal representative for her estate, the administrator.

It may cost you a few hundred dollars to get your own copy of the deed but hopefully you can afford that yourself.

DANDY DON IN OKLAHOMA ([email protected])

Thank you for your assistance Dandy Don