Online Signature Legitimacy for Funeral Leave Policy in Mexico

How to eSign a document: online signature legitimacy for Funeral Leave Policy in Mexico

(whooshing) - Today we're gonna talk about how to find what accounts your loved one owned when they were alive. Let's jump right in. We have helped hundreds of families through the probate process, and one of the questions that comes up on a regular basis, a lot, is what bank accounts, credit cards, or other accounts did their loved one have? Now, if it's the surviving spouse in our office, then they usually have a pretty good idea of what accounts their loved one had. (laughing) Sometimes there are some surprises, but for the most part, the spouse will have a pretty complete picture of assets and debts. But what do we do when the person in my office is a son or a daughter that lived out of town? If we're going to start a probate in Oklahoma, then we need to know who they owed money to and how much they had saved in financial institutions. It's not always possible, and I'll get into why it's not always possible in a minute, but before I start a probate, I like to know who all the creditors are and what assets we are working with. I have talked in other videos, such as this one up here, on small estate affidavits. So, if the total assets are under $50,000 and don't involve an asset that requires probate, then we want to know that ahead of time, before the family starts the expense of probate costs and fees. Let's get back to finding accounts. There are really three ways to go about this. Now, the first I don't like because it costs money, but sometimes there is just no choice, and that is to hire a forensic type of CPA to literally hunt and find assets. This can not only be expensive but time consuming, delaying the probate process for months or even years. In the 20 years we have done this, we've only done this once for folks. I can tell you, that was an expensive probate. The other two ways to find accounts is a little easier. So, the second option is to look through your loved one's mail. I mean, literally look at it, and open up their mail, and start making a list, and saving different account statements in their own folder, so when you come to our office it's all organized. I mean, we are happy to organize all that mail for you and charge you for it. (laughing) But seriously, the more organized you are, the less work we have to do. And if we're talking about a small estate, then the more there is available for distribution to all the heirs. Some people will have their loved one's mail forwarded to their personal house. Some folks will just pick it up every day at their loved one's home. And some will even get a PO box, and have the mail forwarded to the PO box. Now, along with important pieces of mail, such as statements, bills, and refunds, there is also a lot of not so important pieces, such as catalogs and just plain old junk mail. But it's important that it all goes somewhere, and that someone is looking at it on a regular basis. Now, earlier I stated that it's not always possible to know what account your loved one had, and that is because you can't go through their mail until you have been appointed as the legal personal representative of their estate. We have all heard it is a federal offense to go through someone's mail, right? Well, it really is a federal offense. Now at first you might think that sounds silly, but let's think about for a second. And let me give you a really simple example. Let's say a loved one passes away. All of the kids come into town to the funeral, and one of them starts going through the mail and finds a brand new credit card. You can see where I'm going. Now this is completely illegal, but this kid takes the card and lives it up on the town until the credit card company finds out that your loved one actually passed away. Or the kid has run up a bill so high the card is shut down. Now, like I said, this is obviously illegal, and the kid is responsible for the debt. But what if they have no money? All of a sudden it is something that everyone else in the family is going to have to deal with, no matter how it gets resolved. So, it is a federal offense to open someone else's mail, and we need to wait until someone is appointed as the legal personal representative of the estate before we can start investigating what assets and debts there are by opening their mail. In Oklahoma, the court will appoint someone as the legal personal representative of the estate and issue them what's called letters of administration. You've probably heard that from time to time on TV and movie shows where someone gets letters, and that's what they're talking about. Now the post office will need these letters of administration before they will redirect mail to someplace else. The third way involves us more than any of the other ways. Once we go to court and have someone, usually a family member, appointed as the personal representative, then we can start contacting different financial institutions around town and around the country. Now, when this happens, we are not just blindly sending out letters at random to whatever banks are in the Yellow Pages. Families generally have a pretty good idea of where their loved ones had assets. It might have been from conversations around the dinner table at Thanksgiving, or your loved one flat-out said before they died that they had money at XYZ Credit Union, and so that's a pretty good clue that they might have had an account there. When this happens, we, and I mean I, write a letter to XYZ Credit Union with a copy of the Oklahoma letters of administration, and ask in the letter if the decedent had an account at the credit union, and if so, how much money is in that account. Depending on the financial institution, it can take a few weeks to get an answer. However, once we do, then we can continue the probate process, assured that we have a more accurate picture of the loved one's accounts and their debts. Now, a question I get a lot is, what happens if five years from today we find another debtor asset? Well, that is really a two part question. First, we are required to give notice to all known creditors by snail mail and by publication. If the personal representative went through all the mail, then they've made a good faith effort to determine all known creditors. In addition, we actually publish the notice to creditors in the newspaper, giving everyone notice of what is going on. Unless there is some extraordinary circumstance, in Oklahoma creditors have a statutory amount of days to come forward. If they don't, then their claim can be barred forever. The second part of that question has to do with assets, and this happens all the time. In Oklahoma we see this a lot with unknown mineral rights. For years before your loved one died, the minerals were not producing, so they were long forgotten. But now all of a sudden, five years after they die, the minerals do start producing, and the landman wants to know where to send the checks. And I'll say it's usually the landman that finds these assets. When this happens, we usually look to the court's order, which will usually contain some type of language referring to newly found assets shall be distributed between the heirs, or the decedent specifically stated in their last will and testament that newly found assets shall be distributed to a specific person or persons. The bottom line is this situation happens all the time. It's not frequent, but assets do have a way of making themselves known. Well, that's all for today. If you got value, then please hit the like button below. And if this is your first time here, then please also hit the subscribe button to get next week's video. Thanks for watching, and as always, have an awesome week.