Who gets Mom's car?

What is the name of your state? California


My mother in law passed last month. She left no will or trust. She had no property save for a brand new car which my wife and I helped her purchase and have since taken possesion of. But she was the sole title holder. The car was paid in full at the time of purchase and is worth about 16,000. Mother in law said that my wife could have the car if anything happened to her. My wife's sister wants to sell the car and split the profit which she deserves none of and is threatening probate. We would like to avoid probate because it doesn't make since for such a small matter as this. My wife made all her mother's health decisions and funeral arrangements and has assumed an executor role. Here are my questions:

1. Do we have any controlling interest in the car since we paid for part of it? 2. What are our options to avoid paying the sister and avoiding probate?
3. Can my wife still get power of attorney somehow?

Probate is almost unavoidable here.

First talk to the people at the motor vehicles department to find out who is eligible to get this taken care of--they will probably tell you only the executor of her estate is the only legally authorized person to handle this.

Then YOU (or a probate attorney you hire) should be the first ones to get to the courthouse to apply to be executor/administrator or find out what simple procedure may be available for smaller estates.

Then decide whether you want to sell it or not.

DANDY DON IN OKLAHOMA ([email protected])

$16,000 minus attorney fees of ($2,000) minus court costs of approximately $500 minus estate taxes of 20 to 40 % will leave about $8,000 to split between the two of them.

Now, that doesn't take into account the actual price you'll get for selling the car so deduct another $2,000 to $4,000 because it's either going to take a long time to sell with the current glut in the market, or because no one will pay full retail value.

So, now what are you going to do?

Looks like we're going to have to hammer something out with her. Thanks for the advice. I knew I would eventually come to this conclusion.

Probate attorney's advice

The DMV has a form for transfer without probate. But since there is no will the car is actually inherited by all the kids. We've agreed to keep the car and split the value of it 3 ways among the 3 kids. So we will pay my wife's brother and sister out their portions of the car minus funeral costs and our initial amount we contributed. And we will file this form with the DMV.

My question is once the vehicle is transferred to my wife's name, can it still be entered into probate by the sister?

How can she otherwise attempt to get the car?