If you are an heir or beneficiary of an estate, and believe the Executor is not fulfilling their responsibilities you may have a right to challenge their actions in probate court. An Executor owes certain duties to the estate. The main responsibilities of an Executor are to act i...
A petition for discharge of personal representative is something to take very seriously. This petition asks the court to release the personal representative of his or her duties to the estate. As a result, it can have serious consequences. Most importantly, the personal representativ...
Who becomes the administrator? It happens all too often. A family member passes away and after the funeral, thoughts turn to probate and settling the estate. Someone takes charge and decides that they are the right person to be the administrator of the estate. What if you don’t agree? What if yo...
What does Georgia probate law have to say about an executor who lived with the deceased prior to death and continues to live in the estate home while administering the estate? What if the administration is delayed as a result? What can you do if you’re a beneficiary watching all of this happen and...
In many instances, when two people are named co-executor of the estate and required to act together, the co executors disagree about how to manage the estate, and co-executor problems can arise. In some instances, what should be nothing more than simple disagreements turn ugly and one executor may g...
We're going to talk about three things in the estate process, and these three things are going to have a large impact on how complicated the estate is, how expensive it is, and how long it takes. My name is Erik Broel, I'm the founder and CEO of Georgia Probate Law Group. We're a law f...
I have an important topic to talk to you about today: The three phases that every estate goes through in the Georgia probate process. After reading about these phases, you’ll have an overview of the steps to probate a will in Georgia, from the beginning when we open the estate, to the end wh...
Today’s probate law question comes from Atlanta, Georgia. What happens when a business is started by a father and son, the father dies, but the business documents are not clear about whether the son owns any part of the business? To make things more complicated, the father has other children. Does...
Do you have a durable power of attorney in Georgia? If you answered “no”, then contact our office now. Yes, now. So, why do I, a probate attorney, care if you have a durable power of attorney? After all, a power of attorney has nothing to do with probate because it terminates upon death,...
What to do when Medicaid is threatening a lien on property? What can Medicaid do? What can you do? What if the estate property is not worth enough to cover the lien? This week’s question for Georgia probate lawyer Erik Broel comes from Marietta, Georgia. First, some background. Medicaid is a st...
This week’s probate question comes from someone in Atlanta, Georgia. Georgia probate law does not require that an heir be in Georgia, or even in the United States in order to consent to a probate petition, or participate in probating an estate. All that Georgia probate law requires is that the sig...
Having a name on the death certificate that does not match older records can pose a serious challenge for many things, including arranging for a military burial for the deceased soldier. How can you fix this situation? The first thing to do is to find his driver’s license, passport, social secu...
