an heir buying the property at tax value

[tazman]

My grandmother recently died. In her will she left a house in North Carolina to be divided 3 ways. One of the heirs, who is also the executor, wants to purchase the house. He is saying that he is dividing the monies based on the tax value of the house. The market value is about twice the tax value. Is that correct? Also we have recieved no paperwork except a bill of sale to sign over the property to him for what seems to be a very small sum of money, even going by the tax value (not even a copy of the will or papers showing how the figure was arrived at.) Should we hire an appraiser, a lawyer or both? Does it sound like he is trying to get by with something?

 

[ALawyer]

It sure does sound as if he is pulling a fast one.

As executor he has a fiduciary duty to maximize value for all beneficiaries, not to try to take advantage of them for his own personal benefit.

That means he should seek to make a sale at or near fair market value, not "tax value", whatever he means by that. (He could be using it to mean the local real estate assessor's value for property tax -- which often is a very lagging indicator, as it is sometimes set just once every 10-20 years, or somethng set at a percentage of FMV -- or he could mean what he filed on the estate tax return (which probably is an underestimate of value to hold down estate tax -- and so there he'd be cheating both the Government AND you). A sale through a real estate broker at arms length is typically FMV.

If there is agreement on the FMV price and he'd be willing to buy it at FMV LESS the brokers commission, that too would be fair.

As this guy seems out to get you, you would be wise to have a local lawyer there looking out for YOUR interests as he sure is taking care of himself, and who knows what else is going on that you are not aware of.



[Edited by ALawyer on 01-09-2001 at 02:23 PM]