Heir Buyout Company

[faith51]

i am from texas. my mother received a letter from an heir buyout company in los angeles, ca. my mother's uncle lived in los angeles and he passed away approximately 6 months ago. this buy out company states that it can provide my mother cash prior to distribution of the estate. we are completely surprised by this because we didn't even know my mother would inherit anything! how can we obtain a will or ascertain if any probation action has taken place? how can we find out if the will is being contested or not? certainly we are unfamiliar with this process.......probate......heir buyout companies, etc.

 

[Dandy Don]

Absolutely DO NOT have any dealings with this heir buyout company or sign any of their forms until you have a complete understanding of how much you are receiving from the estate and get an estimated date from the executor of when the probate is going to be complete and when you can expect to receive the check.

Before calling the L.A. County Courthouse (File Index Clerk at 213-974-5175), you need to know the decedent's name and the month and year that the death occurred. Clerk will tell you what district the file is located at and can give you address and phone number. You can ask the district court clerk to mail you a copy of the probate file (containing the last will and testament) for a fee of about 50 cents to $1 per page, or if you have a friend or family member who lives in the Los Angeles area, have that person visit the courthouse yourself to look at the file and any other documents in it. There will be a page in the file showing the name and address of the executor, so get that as well.

It's shocking that the estate executor has not already contacted your mother, since that is part of his duties, but maybe he/she is in the process of doing that now and just hasn't contacted her yet. Because other debts, taxes, and funeral expenses must be paid first, he/she may not be able to tell your mother exactly how much money she has coming to her, but if it was mentioned in the will, you will get some idea of perhaps how much it is. If you want to call or write the executor to get information about your share of the estate, you can certainly do so.

The only reason you would want to use a heir buyout company is if there is some reason that the estate was held up for a long period of time (perhaps a year or more) and you needed your inheritance money in a hurry for some urgent reason. If your inheritance is going to be about $15,000 for example, then they offer to pay you a reduced amount now, such as $10,000, and then when it is time for the estate to pay you, the estate pays the heir buyout company instead of paying you, and the heir buyout gets the entire $15,000 (a greedy little $5,000 profit for them). So you can see it would not be very wise to use them unless you need the money in a hurry.

Normally, the estate will probably be closed in about 3-8 months, if it is not contested, so it would be better for your mother to wait to get her inheritance check.

DANDY DON ([email protected])