Estate Property

[Maryz]

My mother left in her will that her estate(North Dakota) is to be divided up between all her children. When my sister went to my mothers house to review the contents, it had been emptied completly out by another family member. Should the contents in the house be divided up equally or sold to pay bills my mother had before she died?

If she just mentioned that her land is to be divided up equally, what happens to the contents of the house? We are currently in a family feud over this. Thank you.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Originally posted by Maryz
My mother left in her will that her estate(North Dakota) is to be divided up between all her children. When my sister went to my mothers house to review the contents, it had been emptied completly out by another family member. Should the contents in the house be divided up equally or sold to pay bills my mother had before she died?

If she just mentioned that her land is to be divided up equally, what happens to the contents of the house? We are currently in a family feud over this. Thank you.

To begin, what does it say in the will? That is most important. In the absence of specifying that a family member would get the contents of the property, then I would think that the property is divided in accordance to how the will specified.

The bills your mother had will be paid out of the estate. How the family members handle that is your own business. If that involves payment of the bills by family members to keep the land and house then that is what will happen. It is not like the property is taken by heirs with the bills left unpaid.

If it were me I would be very angry with the person who "raided" the house... they know exactly what they did. The famous Rabbi Hillel said it perfectly "do unto others as you would have done unto you!" My guess is that the takers would not have wanted that to have happened to them!