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Can I compel cousins to open estates?

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klk314

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Maryland

My grandmother has inadvertently left a difficult situation for her heirs. She owned a rowhouse in Baltimore and had 7 children, one of whom was disabled. The deed for the house is unconventional and appears to also be a will and a trust. It names one of her daughters as the trustee for the disabled child and directs that the trustee can do whatever is needed to the property to provide for the disabled child. After the death of the disabled child, the house was to be sold and the money divided between the 6 non-disabled children. However, the disabled child lived longer than all but one of her siblings, and the house was not sold upon her death. The last sibling continued living in the house and her adult daughter moved in. After the last child died, the adult daughter excluded her cousins from the house (previously they had always been welcome and contributed towards maintainance of the house) and the adult daughter did not pay real estate taxes or the water bill, resulting in the house being auctioned at a tax sale.

I redeemed the property by paying the deliquent taxes and water bill, and am now trying to quiet the title so that a title can be created for the house that names people who are actually alive. I believe that the children of my grandmother's children (my cousins) are each entitled to a portion of the house's value, but some of my cousins do not want to get involved in this case. They are rather poor and uneducated, and don't realize that I am trying to give them an inheritance.

Does the Court have the authority to compel a person to open an estate, and, if not, are there any ideas about how to proceed with this problem?
 


anteater

Senior Member
I would suggest that it is not a question of opening a probate estate. And that an internet discussion forum is not going to get you very far with a case with these kind of complications.

Find an attorney to help you with this.
 

klk314

Junior Member
Haha, thank you - that's good advice. I've consulted a few different attorneys already and none of them have been sure about how to proceed, so I thought I'd look for advice on this forum. I guess a judge will ultimately tell me whether the right actions have been taken.
 

HomeGuru

Senior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Maryland

My grandmother has inadvertently left a difficult situation for her heirs. She owned a rowhouse in Baltimore and had 7 children, one of whom was disabled. The deed for the house is unconventional and appears to also be a will and a trust. It names one of her daughters as the trustee for the disabled child and directs that the trustee can do whatever is needed to the property to provide for the disabled child. After the death of the disabled child, the house was to be sold and the money divided between the 6 non-disabled children. However, the disabled child lived longer than all but one of her siblings, and the house was not sold upon her death. The last sibling continued living in the house and her adult daughter moved in. After the last child died, the adult daughter excluded her cousins from the house (previously they had always been welcome and contributed towards maintainance of the house) and the adult daughter did not pay real estate taxes or the water bill, resulting in the house being auctioned at a tax sale.

I redeemed the property by paying the deliquent taxes and water bill, and am now trying to quiet the title so that a title can be created for the house that names people who are actually alive. I believe that the children of my grandmother's children (my cousins) are each entitled to a portion of the house's value, but some of my cousins do not want to get involved in this case. They are rather poor and uneducated, and don't realize that I am trying to give them an inheritance.

Does the Court have the authority to compel a person to open an estate, and, if not, are there any ideas about how to proceed with this problem?
**A: this may have been a probate matter so the answer is yes, the Probate Court has jurisdiction. The correct term is open probate since an estate has already been established by virtue of the trust and the deaths.
 

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