- Jurisdiction
- Texas
We live in the UK and our father recently died (british but lived in Texas for 15 yrs). He owned a property with his 'wife' (last time I spoke to him he had a girlfriend and his friends didn't know he was married). Before she can sell we've been asked to sign a general warranty deed, otherwise the property 'will be repossessed' (her words). He/they are in debt, his credit cards had been declined (mentioned in his suicide note), they were behind on the mortgage and car loan payments, had no life assurance/mortgage protection, he'd cashed in his 401k and owed over $50k etc (statements made by the wife).
The forms have to be signed by an american so we'll have to go to the US embassy in London which will mean travel and possibly accommodation costs. My sister's a student and has no means to pay (he was supposed to pay maintenance until she graduated but owed over $8k at the time of his death) so she's struggling to finance the final year of her course and doesn't see why she should miss 2 days of lectures to help a woman who didn't have the decency to tell us he was dead (we found out on facebook. She also donated his body to medical science before we tracked her down so she's not someone we feel we can trust.
Our other worry is, if we do sign the deed, do we become responsible for his debts? If the house sells for the asking price there's approx $65k equity less realator/legal fees and there's a lien for the outstanding child support but who's going to pay full price for a property where the previous owner killed himself?
Would you sign or ignore?
The forms have to be signed by an american so we'll have to go to the US embassy in London which will mean travel and possibly accommodation costs. My sister's a student and has no means to pay (he was supposed to pay maintenance until she graduated but owed over $8k at the time of his death) so she's struggling to finance the final year of her course and doesn't see why she should miss 2 days of lectures to help a woman who didn't have the decency to tell us he was dead (we found out on facebook. She also donated his body to medical science before we tracked her down so she's not someone we feel we can trust.
Our other worry is, if we do sign the deed, do we become responsible for his debts? If the house sells for the asking price there's approx $65k equity less realator/legal fees and there's a lien for the outstanding child support but who's going to pay full price for a property where the previous owner killed himself?
Would you sign or ignore?