Hello, I'm in need of legal advice. My mother passed away last year - her house went into foreclosure and was sold last month. I was contacted by a law firm in Irvine California a week ago claiming they were working on her estate. Olympia Law PC claims there is $70,000 in excess funds after the loan was paid out. For a fee of 35% of the payout they will try to recover the funds. Is this a known scam? I'm assuming they should be avoided. My mother had nothing to do with setting them up as her attorney before she passed away. Can someone advise if it's possible to re-coupe excess funds after a house has been taken and sold by the bank? Is there a way of checking if there are excess funds? if so, what is the process? There is a life insurance policy as well - I have no idea where to look to find the insurer. I don't have her social security number or death certificate.
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Advice needed - Moms house foreclosed-is it possible to recover excess funds?
- Thread Starter L727
- Start date
zddoodah
Well-Known Member
Known to whom? No one here has any idea whether anyone is working a scam, but here's the question you should ask: Why and on whose behalf is this firm "working on [your mother's] estate"? And here are some questions you should answer:
Was your mother's estate probated? If so, whom did the court appoint as executor? Does/did the executor have an attorney? Why did the executor allow the home to be foreclosed?
Yes. In fact, the foreclosing lender has the legal obligation to pay over any excess funds after a foreclosure sale has occurred (of course, this obligation should make one wonder why paying a 35% contingent fee would be a good idea). Keep in mind, however, that foreclosure sales rarely, if ever, result in sales for fair market price, and all expenses of foreclosure and any junior liens will need to be paid before the defaulting homeowner (or, in your mother's case, her estate) receives anything.
The executor of your mother's estate or his/her attorney should contact the bank or the company that handled the foreclosure sale about this.
How could you know there is a life insurance policy but not know who the insurer is?
A death certificate can be obtained from the OC Recorder in Santa Ana. As far as the SSN, why would you need that?
zddoodah
Well-Known Member
Did you intend simply to quote my prior response and then not add any additional information?
Thank you for that, I hadn't spoken to her for quite some time before her death.
Sorry - First thing in the morning here -. A friend of hers told me about the life insurance policy - She hasn't any information on who it was with. I don't know who was the executor or any of the particulars of why the house was allowed to foreclose. I needed her social security number to track the life insurance policy. I really have nothing - The person from Olympia Law PC had information on a few small debts she still has - So I'm assuming theres a way to access the information about the excess funds? Find out who the bank was? I'm at a loss as to where to start looking.
zddoodah
Well-Known Member
If it's early in the morning where you are when it's mid-afternoon in California, then I gather you're somewhere in the Orient, which may complicate things a bit.
That said, it's a bit tough to offer useful information if you have few or none of the relevant facts. Generally, when a person who owns real property dies, someone will probate her estate. Probate is the process by which a deceased person's assets are marshaled, debts are identified, assets are liquidated to the extent necessary to pay valid debts, and whatever is left is distributed to the person's designated in the deceased's will or the heirs provided in the applicable law.
It doesn't sound like you know anything about the probate of your mother's estate, including whether or not it was probated at all. Do you have other relatives who lived near your mother? If no one undertook to probate the estate, then that would probably explain why the property was foreclosed. As far as the insurance policy, you mentioned that a friend of your mother's mentioned it, but that's a far cry from actually knowing that it exists. Presumably, your mother had records among her personal effects. Did someone ever go through her personal records? If your mother was employed at the time of her death, it's possible she had life insurance through her employer, so you might want to contact the employer (particularly if the employer has a human resources department).
Ultimately, the best thing to do might be to contact a probate attorney in Orange County to help you sort things out.
That said, it's a bit tough to offer useful information if you have few or none of the relevant facts. Generally, when a person who owns real property dies, someone will probate her estate. Probate is the process by which a deceased person's assets are marshaled, debts are identified, assets are liquidated to the extent necessary to pay valid debts, and whatever is left is distributed to the person's designated in the deceased's will or the heirs provided in the applicable law.
It doesn't sound like you know anything about the probate of your mother's estate, including whether or not it was probated at all. Do you have other relatives who lived near your mother? If no one undertook to probate the estate, then that would probably explain why the property was foreclosed. As far as the insurance policy, you mentioned that a friend of your mother's mentioned it, but that's a far cry from actually knowing that it exists. Presumably, your mother had records among her personal effects. Did someone ever go through her personal records? If your mother was employed at the time of her death, it's possible she had life insurance through her employer, so you might want to contact the employer (particularly if the employer has a human resources department).
Ultimately, the best thing to do might be to contact a probate attorney in Orange County to help you sort things out.
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