Does your state permit informal probate? If it does, prepare a brief summary of the statute with its citation and post it here along with your general answer.

Does your state permit informal probate? If it does, prepare a brief summary of the statute with its citation and post it here along with your general answer. If your state does not permit informal probate, search the statutes for states in your geographic area until you find one that does and prepare a brief summary of that statute.

Please review and respond to at least two of your classmates’ posts.

Resource

Bird, B. (2019, April). What Is an informal probate? PocketSense. https://pocketsense.com/informal-probate-7250.html

DQ2 Topic 2: Claims Against the Estate

Scenario

Don, a Washington resident, died in January, 2000 with an estate valued at $50,000. He left his whole estate to his son Edwin, whom he also named as personal representative. Edwin applied for letters testamentary and these were issued. Shortly thereafter, he published the statutorily required notice to creditors in the newspaper. No claims were filed within four months and, since Don’s estate was well below the level that would incur any death taxes, Edwin distributed the $50,000 (less administrative expenses) to himself in August and closed the estate. He then invested the money in the stock market.

In October 2000, the stock market crashed rather severely, and Edwin’s investment dropped to half the value he had invested. Not too long after that, Edwin received a letter from a former business associate of his father. The letter stated that this associate, Fred, had just learned of Don’s death, that Fred had loaned $40,000 to Don in 1999, and that the note he held from Don came due in January 2001. Edwin had seen some correspondence relating to such a loan when he had gone through his father’s papers, but nothing that indicated whether the loan had ever been finalized

Answer the following questions:

Based upon Washington state law, is Don’s estate liable for the loan? Is Edwin?

What if this situation occurred in your state? See if you can locate the relevant state statute and any case law that might be helpful in answering this question. Then comment on your research into your own state’s laws. If you happen to live in Washington state, pick a neighboring state’s statutes to review.

Take time to review and comment on at least two of your classmates’ responses.

Resources

Washington State Probate. (n.d.). (2012). Is a probate necessary? http://www.wa-probate.com/Instructions/Is-Probate-Necessary.htm#First

Randolph, M. & Keene, V. (2020). Washington probate: An overview. Nolo. https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/washington-probate-an-overview.html