Gifted property

[Fed Up With BS]

Colorado. Last March my half-brother was the sole beneficiary to his father's estate in California, approx $800,000.00 in July he (my brother) unfortunately, passed away while battling alcohol addiction or was poisoned before he could collect from his father's estate, my brothers' aunt in California was the trustee of his father's estate. My brother who lived in Colorado died intestate and had one iliegitement child (minor). Before he passed away he gave me a car he inherited from his father. My brother's aunt was supposed to send the title from California where the car was until last May when he asked me to go to California and trailer the car to Colorado, I paid for airfare, rental truck, trailer, fuel, and hotel. I have had possession of the car since last May. In June and July, my brother again contacted his aunt and asked her to send the title with the payment from his father's estate. When he passed away, his baby's momma contacted the aunt and the two of them split his father's estate the aunt transferred the car title to herself and then sold it (the title) to the baby's momma for one dollar. Baby momma is taking me to court for the car. Is the car mine or will I be forced to give it to Baby's momma? If I do have to give it up will I be reimbursed for the past year of storage and transportation, nearly $20,000.00? I realize my brother's estate belongs to his child and because of its value and the fact he died intestate by law it is required to go through probate here in Colorado but, the title is California and Baby's momma cannot transfer it into her name in Colorado without physical possession of the car. Does jurisdiction lay in California or Colorado? Thank you for any advice offered.

 

[Taxing Matters]

Colorado. I realize my brother's estate belongs to his child and because of its value and the fact he died intestate by law it is required to go through probate here in Colorado but, the title is California and Baby's momma cannot transfer it into her name in Colorado without physical possession of the car. Does jurisdiction lay in California or Colorado? Thank you for any advice offered.

Your half-brother's right to inherit from his father was fixed at the time of your father's death. The fact that he died before he collected all of it does not change that. He gave you the car before he died and thus the car is yours. The problem will be proving that it was a gift if his estate contests the matter and claims that your half-brother gave you the car to use, but didn't give you ownership of the car. They have the title to the car, which gives them an upper hand in that kind of dispute unless you've got something solid in writing from your brother that he was making an outright gift of the car to you. Your post implies that your brother lived in Colorado and so do you. If that's correct, primay probate jurisdiction for your brother's estate is in Colorado. If he had assets in California then an ancillary probate might be needed in that state, too. That'll depend on what assets he had there. You have the problem that you need a Colorado title to get the car registered in this state. It'd be faster and likely cheaper for you to come to some compromise on this rather than having to deal with it in probate.

 

[adjusterjack]

Baby momma is taking me to court for the car

Does that mean that you have been served a summons to court (and a complaint) with a court name, case number, and signature of a judge or court clerk?

If yes, what court? Where?

You have the problem that you need a Colorado title to get the car registered in this state.

Fortunately, Colorado is one of many states that allows a car owner to post a surety bond to get title, if ownership is questionable. It's not an easy process and I don't know if it will hold up against a lawsuit.

But, Fed Up, review the procedure at the following link. Then decide.

DR2922.pdf (colorado.gov)

 

[zddoodah]

Last March my half-brother was the sole beneficiary to his father's estate in California

I assume his father is not your father (i.e., that you both have the same mother).

he (my brother) unfortunately, passed away while battling alcohol addiction or was poisoned before he could collect from his father's estate, my brothers' aunt in California was the trustee of his father's estate.

OK...a couple things here. First, you've mixed terminology here, which creates confusion. Estates don't have trustees. In California, they have personal representatives or administrators. Trustees fill an analogous role with respect to a trust. Did your half-brother's father have a trust? If your use of "trustee" was inadvertent, has this aunt been appointed by the probate court to serve as personal representative/administrator? Is the estate administration still open?

My brother's aunt was supposed to send the title from California where the car was until last May when he asked me to go to California and trailer the car to Colorado, I paid for airfare, rental truck, trailer, fuel, and hotel. I have had possession of the car since last May. In June and July, my brother again contacted his aunt and asked her to send the title with the payment from his father's estate.

Now I'm confused. Why was your half-brother's aunt handling these things while he was still alive?

When he passed away, his baby's momma contacted the aunt and the two of them split his father's estate

Huh?

Baby momma is taking me to court for the car. Is the car mine or will I be forced to give it to Baby's momma?

You've got possession, but she's got title. If you can prove that the car was gifted to you while your half-brother was still alive and that he simply failed to provide you with the title document, then you might prevail. Do you have any evidence other than your testimony to support that argument?

If I do have to give it up will I be reimbursed for the past year of storage and transportation, nearly $20,000.00?

What? Why would you have paid that sort of money to transport (and store??) a used car? Is the car operable? Is it even worth $20k?

Does jurisdiction lay in California or Colorado?

If you both live in Colorado, then any lawsuit should occur in Colorado.

 

[Taxing Matters]

Fortunately, Colorado is one of many states that allows a car owner to post a surety bond to get title, if ownership is questionable. It's not an easy process and I don't know if it will hold up against a lawsuit.

Unless he's got something in writing from his brother saying the brother gave him the car, the court is going to side with the person holding the actual certificate of title.

 

[Fed Up With BS]

Your half-brother's right to inherit from his father was fixed at the time of your father's death. The fact that he died before he collected all of it does not change that. He gave you the car before he died and thus the car is yours. The problem will be proving that it was a gift if his estate contests the matter and claims that your half-brother gave you the car to use, but didn't give you ownership of the car. They have the title to the car, which gives them an upper hand in that kind of dispute unless you've got something solid in writing from your brother that he was making an outright gift of the car to you. Your post implies that your brother lived in Colorado and so do you. If that's correct, primay probate jurisdiction for your brother's estate is in Colorado. If he had assets in California then an ancillary probate might be needed in that state, too. That'll depend on what assets he had there. You have the problem that you need a Colorado title to get the car registered in this state. It'd be faster and likely cheaper for you to come to some compromise on this rather than having to deal with it in probate.

Thank you for your time and advice.

 

[Fed Up With BS]

I assume his father is not your father (i.e., that you both have the same mother).

Correct, his father married my mother when I was 8 years old and my brother was born 2 years later.

In order to keep perspective and garner the best opinion I refer to him as "half brother" in my post but, other than for my posted question, he was nothing less than my brother and we never viewed him in any other capacity.



OK...a couple things here. First, you've mixed terminology here, which creates confusion. Estates don't have trustees. In California, they have personal representatives or administrators. Trustees fill an analogous role with respect to a trust. Did your half-brother's father have a trust? If your use of "trustee" was inadvertent, has this aunt been appointed by the probate court to serve as personal representative/administrator? Is the estate administration still open?

His father had a living trust in which his father was the designated trustee. My brother's aunt (78 years) and my brother (39 years) were both designated to serve as his father's successor. After his father (My stepfather of 4 years) passed away, I was asked to go to California to secure my brother's inheritance and bring all property to Colorado. When I traveled to California to pick up the car, I also packed up his father's townhome and all of its contents (2 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a garage). My brother's aunt was supposed to have all of his father's financial papers, important documents, and bank cards together for me to pick up as well. His aunt is kind of old and said she couldn't be available at that time and she said she would send those things out to my brother in Colorado within a week. Then she made excuse after excuse to my brother's requests to send them out and finally, our mother called his aunt, she also asked his aunt to send those things. His aunt became enraged and stopped all communication with our mother. Just days after my brother passed away, his aunt called our mother and explained that she was going to send a transport to my home to pick up the car and take it back to California so she could sell it and hold the funds until my brother's daughter (6years) turns eighteen. Our mother asked my brother's aunt to send a copy of his father's will and an accounting of his father's estate or trust and an accounting of my brother's inheritance. His aunt refused and accused me of stealing the car. Five months after my brother passed away his aunt transferred the car title into her own name and then sold or gave it away to my brother's baby's momma here in Colorado for $1. The car is a classic hotrod and has a value of approximately $55K. My brother and the baby's momma are not married and cannot be considered common law as they did not sleep in the same bedroom and neither of them held themselves out as a married couple.



Now I'm confused. Why was your half-brother's aunt handling these things while he was still alive?

Not sure, I think it was pressure from his baby's momma out of convenience. As far as I am aware my brother did ask his aunt to handle the sale of his father's townhome in California and that is also where his aunt lives. His aunt transferred the townhome into her own name and sold it about one month before my brother passed away. I do not know if his aunt sent him those funds. Only his aunt has any and all knowledge of what happened to my brother's father's financial assets and the $640K from the sale of the townhome, an estimated $180K life insurance policy, an estimated $40K in checking, an estimated $64K in savings, and a retirement fund. These monies were also never sent to my brother before he passed. We are under the impression that my brother's aunt and baby's momma split his inheritance. Baby's momma has also cut all ties with our family. She says that we cannot see my brother's daughter because I have stolen the car.




Huh?




You've got possession, but she's got title. If you can prove that the car was gifted to you while your half-brother was still alive and that he simply failed to provide you with the title document, then you might prevail. Do you have any evidence other than your testimony to support that argument?

No, but, His baby's momma, our mother, three of his surviving brothers, and his aunt all have personal knowledge that my brother promised to repay the $20K in costs associated with traveling to California to collect his father's belongings. Both baby's momma and aunt have refused to honor the promise to reimburse for the costs to move everything to Colorado in spite of the fact that baby's momma holds all of my brother's possessions, she refuses any of his family a single item, not even a wrestling uniform requested by our mother. We have been given nothing to remember or brother, our son, our friend. To be perfectly clear, there were two vehicles, and, the entire contents of the two-bedroom townhome, airfare, hotel, food, and rental cars for 6 adults (each of them was personally asked by my brother to travel and assist). The moving truck by itself, one way from California to Colorado was just over $5,000.00, just the truck.

Here is a strange fact: until the party arrived to pack up his father's personal belongings, only his aunt had keys to the townhome and she did admit to staying at the townhome after his father passed away. Back to the strange fact: among all of his father's possessions and contents of his home, clothes (no less than 50 pairs of mostly new Levi's, an equal number of shirts all ironed and on hangers, high-end jogging suits, a dozen pairs of new sneakers) meds, toiletries, etc there were seven suits, no less than a dozen pairs of dress shoes, half a dozen nice overcoats, a dozen designer ties but, not one cufflink, there wasn't a single piece of jewelry, not even a single watch yet I can remember the man wore a diamond stud earring every time I ever saw him even on the day he married our mother. The man had pride in himself, he wore a watch and a necklace. I also personally found it strange that we found no coin collection (i assume every man has at least half a dozen coins that whether valuable or just neat, guys collect coins). The man was practically a professional fisherman before and during his retirement, he had a dozen fishing rods in an old plastic bucket in the garage but not a single fishing reel or tacklebox anywhere. I found two high-end brand-name fishing reel boxes on the very back of the top shelf of a cabinet in the garage and they were empty. What well-to-do man has no personal possessions? Has no rings, misc coins, and eleven fishing poles without a single reel. My brother's aunt handed the keys to the cars and the townhome to us when we arrived in California but she split after that and other than conversations with my brother once we were back in Colorado, We didn't hear from her until she called to say she was taking the car back to California. I hope I am not over-explaining but let me be frank, his aunt, there is no history of this person until 2014, she has four tax liens from the past four years, my brother is just one of four people that died in a three-month span last year and his aunt had daily contact with the other three.


What? Why would you have paid that sort of money to transport (and store??) a used car? Is the car operable? Is it even worth $20k?

I have the car fully insured and stored in a climate-controlled 24-hour security-monitored facility. These costs are over $200 per month for the past 10 months. The cost of transport and storage to date is approx $22,000.00 As mentioned above the value of the car was appraised at $55K. I am aware of Colorado Testency Succession laws and Probate Codes require my brother's estate to be probated, I lack knowledge of the material matter to move his estate to probate and the baby's momma has an undetermined windfall that she is using to pay a lawyer to sue me for the one item my brother gifted. If my brother knew his life was about to expire he would have left a sizable trust to his daughter and her education. He would have shared generously with our mother and his siblings because he loved us very much. I personally made a number of personal sacrifices for the betterment of my siblings and my brother awarded me with the car.




If you both live in Colorado, then any lawsuit should occur in Colorado.

Recently I received a copy of his father's will thru the baby's momma's attorney (Exhibit The Will) which designates both my brother and his aunt as successors to the trust. In my opinion, his aunt should have sent him all of his father's personal accounts, financial records, physical bank cards, car titles, etc. when that stuff was requested. His aunt had no authority to administer my brother's estate outside of Colorado, nor the authority to transfer the California title to herself for personal gain even if just $1.

P.S. Thank you for your response, I consider myself fortunate, and replying has made me more awake.

 

[Fed Up With BS]

Unless he's got something in writing from his brother saying the brother gave him the car, the court is going to side with the person holding the actual certificate of title.

Damn, whatever happened to possession is 9/10th, or was that old wives' tale?

 

[Taxing Matters]

Damn, whatever happened to possession is 9/10th, or was that old wives' tale?

That old expression refers the outcome of disputes over property that doesn't have deeds, titles, or other written proof of ownership. So if you've had a TV set in your house for 5 years and your neighbor suddendly claims the TV is his, he'll lose that case unless he has more than just his word that it's is, like a sales receipt with the make, model, and serial number of the TV set on it. In other words, the expression deals with verbal disputes over who owns personal property. The idea is that when it comes down to just deuling verbal claims of ownership, it's more likely that the guy who actually has possession of it is the one who owns it. But that doesn't help when there is other evidence of ownership, particular things like deeds and certificates of title. Your verbal claim that were given title to the car is going to be weak against a party that shows up with the certificate of title for that car titled to that party.

 

[zddoodah]

Damn, whatever happened to possession is 9/10th, or was that old wives' tale?

Amplifying (or maybe just restating) what "Taxing Matters" wrote, possession typically creates the presumption of ownership. Absent evidence to the contrary, the law is going to presume you own that which you possess. However, in this case, the certificate of title is absolutely evidence to the contrary. Since you indicated that you don't have any evidence other than your testimony to prove the gift, I doubt you'd prevail. As far as the expense of storing the vehicle in a cryogenic chamber (or whatever), I can't see you having any entitlement since you presumably did that of your own volition.

P.S. If you respond further, please don't respond within the quote boxes. Doing so makes it VERY difficult to discern what you're quoting and your response.