Depends. The crew doing the cleanup of my folks’ place went above and beyond, so we tipped them. The crew doing my neighbors place made and left a mess, while breaking a few things, so I told our neighbor not to.
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We never tip contractors but we provide snacks and water, access to a bathroom, and small tokens of appreciation in the end (like a bottle of decent wine or a box of fancy cookies etc.)
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If I asked this I can’t find it … Anyone know whether you need a lawyer for an affiidavit of heirship or can you do this on your own with a notary? In Texas.
Not familiar with the term…. does it mean no Will was found?
I found this: “An Affidavit of Heirship is a legal document that allows lawful heirs or someone who knows them to confirm their relationship to the deceased. This affidavit can be used to settle the estate of someone who has died without a Will.”
Yeah, it can be for someone without a will or someone with a will that hasn’t been probated in four years. What’s confusing to me is whether I really need a lawyer. I’m inclined to get one regardless, but my brother is even cheaper than I am and I want to do my due diligence to get that question answered.
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We did the affidavit for my brother’s estate without a lawyer.
I found a boilerplate affidavit so it sounded likely. Did you just fill out the form and get it notarized with witnesses? It sounds easy. The lawyer wants to charge $750.
I had a different situation (as a CO executor getting Letter of Testamentary, “a formal document the Colorado probate courts provide to the personal representative of an estate, giving them the authority to act on the behalf of the estate/decedent”). But based on my experience, I want to point out that it might be worth calling the county clerk for info. My county clerk phone reps were sooo helpful (multiple calls, with followup questions). They explained that with the Will, even though from 1998, it would be pretty straightforward paperwork. They said about half of family executors hired lawyers (I’m assuming on the cases with real estate and more complication). I did my own filing and paid the $195, but perhaps I would have had to pay that with or without a lawyer.
We just used a form and filed it ourselves. We were able to find our state’s form, and the brother we agreed to be executor sent it to each heir. Another brother predeceased the brother who died intestate, so the form was sent to his D, according to our state law. We each had to have our own form completed and notarized, since we weren’t all in the same area. We got a lot of great information to guide us through the process thanks to Google, and we did everything without a lawyer.
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Well, a county office is what got this whole thing rolling.
We were in my deceased dad’s hometown for his brother’s funeral and where his land is. I got my brother – the executor but who doesn’t want to do anything – to stop by the county clerk’s office thinking maybe they would help us while we were all there (my mom and siblings). The woman at the counter was NOT the nice, helpful woman with whom I had spoken previously on the phone. All the woman at the counter would say is “sounds like you need to talk to a lawyer.” After the third time, a lawyer appears! lol Like he was a genie! He offered to do it for $750, which my mom can afford, but I just started doing a little researching and started thinking that maybe we could do it on our own.
Wow… it almost sounds like a Hearse Chaser attorney
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$750 for someone’s 15 minutes of work?! That is a ripoff.
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That’s how I feel at this point.
That’s where lawyer jokes are created. I just had to fork over $300 for 5 minute work. I tried to do it on my own but the county kept sending me to wrong places. Gave up.
This is the wrong way to think about it-- you aren’t paying $300 for five minutes of work, you are paying for years (or decades) of experience with situations just like yours.
I was executor for an estate. The deceased moved two years prior to be closer to family (I was a resident of neither the original state or the new state and I am not a lawyer). By chance, a family friend who is a CPA and has high net worth client asked me “have you determined residency yet” as I was griping about how much work it was. I didn’t even know residency could be “determined”- death certificate was pretty clear about where the person died!!!
The estate attorney (in the new state) was clueless. So I found “the expert”, paid $1000 for what was likely a 15 minute draft of a letter (written by a paralegal, no doubt), attached an exhibit (which I had made, with what the “expert” told me was the relevant information) and in the end… saved the estate over $50K in taxes.
Turns out the “state of death” taxes estates starting at dollar 1. Original state (where the will had been drawn up, where the decedent was still registered to vote, and still had a library card among other seemingly trivial details…) only taxed after a certain threshold, and even then, at a lower rate than the new state.
This is not something a storefront lawyer is necessarily going to know or understand, and certainly is not going to suggest that going through the deceased’s wallet to find library cards, old blood donor cards from the Red Cross showing the donation site, etc. would be compelling to the court in determining residency.
I consider it $1K well spent (spend a thousand, save 52K and change). And I am a do-it-yourselfer!!! But you have to pay for expertise- and if it’s not your money it’s even more important not to leave it on the table if you don’t have to.
YMMV, but don’t decide that $300 for 5 minutes is a waste of money. I have seen situations where some heirs- who could have really used the money- ended up with very expensive decisions because they didn’t fully understand what the legal alternatives were.
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Your bank may be able to guide you to an attorney who can perform simple estate services at low prices.
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It is not years of training I was paying for since anyone who can read can fill it out. It was the system not being transparent. It shouldn’t be hard for an ordinary people to get the right form. This is an extreme contrast to my experience in the 80’s. I was helping someone to apply for a green card. Immigration is far more complex matter involving many forms. The government had clear guidelines. If you followed it through, you could do it all on your own. You didn’t need a lawyer. I remember thinking how admirable that was. It was truly egalitarian. Over the last 30-40 years, it has gotten much less transparent and therefore elitist. The gov sends you to “experts” more often. That is a form of inequality. We shouldn’t condone it. If you are too poor to afford an expert, you are out of luck. I see that in tax codes, too. Go get a tax accountant. We shouldn’t have to. Hope experts weren’t spending years training to arrive at the right form. I hope they were training for more pertinent matters.
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we started our hoarder excavation yesterday. I encourage all of you to throw out old newspapers and magazine!
I took the good advice as much as possible, and we’ve opened hundreds of boxes just in case something important was inside. We have not found much of anything valuable or important that was unexpected, but I did find a box of silver dollars, and improbably in the bottom of junk we found a carefully packed, nearly pristine blonde fur coat, maybe mink?
But throw out your newspapers. and your drinking glasses. and plain old pyrex. Please.
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If only that was what my brother was hoarding …
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