video summary
Who owns the personal possession of a deceased person? The probate code provides that the surviving spouse is entitled to $20,000 of household, personal property furniture, furnishings things such as that, plus, two motor vehicles. So if you have a probate proceeding that is considered exempt property, unless the property’s been specifically devised, if there’s no surviving spouse, well, then it goes to the children of the decedent and that they’re entitled to the $20,000 of furniture and furnishings and the two motor vehicles. The usual scenario that I hear, however, someone passes away. They don’t, the only thing that that’s available are the automobiles and, and the household furniture and furnishings. And, even if they have a will, they’re not going to go through probate because everything else is already was jointly owned or had been transferred outside of probate with the beneficiary.
So that present the problem, a functional family, you can get the children together and they can have the automobile transferred into their names or designate who they wish to have the automobile transferred to, on the furniture and furnishings. They can sort it out amongst themselves. When we have a dis functional family it’s problematic because it’s sort of the, I call it the U-Haul effect, whoever gets there first with the U-Haul wins because you don’t have a probate proceeding and if items are missing well, how do you prove what’s missing? What was given away beforehand? And furthermore, what’s the value and, and who took, who hauled it off. So in my career, I’ve never had a probate proceeding just for untitled personal property. So, hopefully you can work this out if there’s no probate proceeding amongst those files or the children. So if you have any questions about exempt property, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.