This is my post for #freewriters 2491 prompt inquiry hosted by @mariannewest
After three years we are finally getting closer to getting my mother's probate finalized. After many months/years of arguing the one sister has now said she will sign off on the 2 lots our mother gave me and I have been paying the taxes for over 25 years. If someone gives you something, be sure and get it in your name, I thought Mom would always be here so I never bothered to get them changed to my name, and 3 days before her stroke she told me we needed to get them in my name.
Since she hired the Florida lawyer, the sister who did not want to sign them over to me had to be on the phone with me when I talked to the lawyer today, or that is what she told me.
When I did an inquiry as to how much it would cost to get the lots in my name he told me it would be 349.00 for each lot. Months ago when we asked they told us that it would be a total of 300 to get my sister's names off of my lots, somehow it went up 49 dollars and we were not told it would be for each one. After questioning him, he came down a 100 dollars, I am not happy about it but, it is what it is. It is now going to cost me 598 to get them in my name. By the time I pay this pay my sister for the lawyer, and pay a realtor to sell them, I do not know if I will end up with anything.
I found out the house is finished going through probate, it is in all three of our names. We are going to sell it but the other sister wants to live in it for 2 more years, but the sister who hired the lawyer wants to sell it now, they are both living there, I do not care either way but I think it would be better to wait because things are not selling right now. We will see what happens.
In the meantime, I hired a law firm in Alabama for our Mother's property up there. It is commercial land on a main highway but it is oddly shaped and is almost an acre. Mom said it was shaped like a hatchet. I am not sure what it is worth if anything. The good news is the attorney I hired said since there was no will and we are going to sell it, we do not need to go through probate. Alabama has a law that land owned by a deceased person goes to their heirs that is what I understood but I could be wrong. He told me I needed to get her original copy death certificate, which I got yesterday and mailed to him today, and he said I needed to get 2 people who knew she owned the land to sign an affidavit stating they knew this. He said he would send me the forms. To my understanding, after we do this, we can sell the land.
photos are mine my monsteria delisiousous plant