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Probate in CT

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AJones55

New member
Connecticut Question

Administrator of estranged fathers estate. Am I required to sell his car to pay remaining debts? Also, I could have filed small estate probate but wasn’t aware of his assets at the time. Is it too late to change to that?
 


Taxing Matters

Overtaxed Member
Estate assets go first to paying the funeral costs, taxes, adminstrative expenses, and debts of the decedent. If there isn't enough cash in the estate to pay those things then you need to sell assets to raise the money to pay for it. Only after all that stuff is paid can you distribute assets to beneficiaries. If there are insufficient assets to pay everything then the payments must be made in the priority set out in federal and Connecticut state law.

As to the small estate process, it might be too late now to do that if you already opened formal probate. The applicable statute for this process, Connecticut General Statute (GS) § 45a-273 mentions that the court may act on the small estate affidavit if certain conditions are met, including that the the courts finds that no probate action is currently pending in the courts. The form for the affidavit spells out the basic requirements to qualify for the small estate procedure and asks for the necessary information about the estate, including whether there is a current probate proceeding already open. You might want to ask a probate attorney what you'd need to do to use the small estate procedure at this point, assuming there is still some way to do it at this point.
 

adjusterjack

Senior Member
Am I required to sell his car to pay remaining debts?
Not necessarily. If you want to keep the car you can use your own money in the equivalent of the fair market value of the car to pay the estate's debts.

Simple example: $5000 debt. $5000 car value. You come up with $5000 cash to pay the debt. You keep the car. Overly simplified of course.
 

zddoodah

Active Member
Administrator of estranged fathers estate.
I assume you omitted the words "I am the" from the beginning of this sentence fragment.

Assuming that's correct, I'm going to ask the following because many, many people get this wrong: Were you appointed by the court to serve as administrator? Or are you just nominated in your father's will to serve in that capacity?

Am I required to sell his car to pay remaining debts?
As a very general matter, the administrator of a decedent's estate is required to do the following:

1. Identify and take possession and/or control of the deceased's assets.
2. Identify the debts of the deceased.
3. Use the decedent's assets to pay the decedent's debts (liquidating non-liquid assets if the deceased's liquid assets are insufficient to pay debts).
4. Distribute anything that's left over to the heirs under the will or the intestate succession law.

If, in fact, you have been appointed by the court to serve as administrator, then those are your basic obligations. If you have not been appointed by the court, then you have no obligations whatsoever, although if you acquire and retain estate assets that could have been used to pay estate debt, you may be held liable by the estate's creditors up to the value of the assets retained.

I could have filed small estate probate but wasn’t aware of his assets at the time. Is it too late to change to that?
Answering this question rather obviously requires that we have temporal reference points that you didn't provide.
 

AJones55

New member
Not necessarily. If you want to keep the car you can use your own money in the equivalent of the fair market value of the car to pay the estate's debts.

Simple example: $5000 debt. $5000 car value. You come up with $5000 cash to pay the debt. You keep the car. Overly simplified of course.
Thanks.

The remaining debts debts not covered by liquidating some stocks should be less than $1,000. The car is worth $5-6,000. Can I sell it to myself for $1,000 as long as his debts are satisfied?
 

AJones55

New member
Assuming that's correct, I'm going to ask the following because many, many people get this wrong: Were you appointed by the court to serve as administrator? Or are you just nominated in your father's will to serve in that capacity?



As a very general matter, the administrator of a decedent's estate is required to do the following:

1. Identify and take possession and/or control of the deceased's assets.
2. Identify the debts of the deceased.
3. Use the decedent's assets to pay the decedent's debts (liquidating non-liquid assets if the deceased's liquid assets are insufficient to pay debts).
4. Distribute anything that's left over to the heirs under the will or the intestate succession law.

If, in fact, you have been appointed by the court to serve as administrator, then those are your basic obligations. If you have not been appointed by the court, then you have no obligations whatsoever, although if you acquire and retain estate assets that could have been used to pay estate debt, you may be held liable by the estate's creditors up to the value of the assets retained.
Yes, I am court appointed. He had no will. I am sole heir as well.
 

zddoodah

Active Member
If you're the sole heir and can satisfy debts with liquid assets or out of your own pocket, there's not likely any need to go through an actual "sale."
 

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