What happens when you get an inheritance?

The executor of the estate issues a check. If it's local and you're in need, you may be able to pick it up, but more often it's mailed. Usually it's at least several months after the death(s).

If the executor is a financial planner or banker, maybe direct deposit is possible, but when Mr. Maryn handles estates, he writes checks. (He's an attorney.) Often the executor is not a financial professional but someone the deceased or the heirs trust to handle the estate properly.

Maryn, huge Grover fan

In most cases an attorney would handle it for you. If you are not involved with the actual probate, etc., and you were only receiving cash, then you might receive it through the mail. Probates often take a good while to complete, so you wouldn't just be handed the money unless it was set up in an account with you as joint tenant with rights of survivorship or co-owner.

Sometimes bank accounts will be set up with a "pay on death" instruction for the beneficiaries to receive it right away.
Banks have to get permission from the state to release it to you after the state determines an inheritance tax isn't likely to be due. If one is expected to be due, they may have to "hold" that amount until the estate tax is filed and paid.

If we know more about the situation you are talking about then could give better information. Did the parents have a will? What kind of property are you talking about? Some people might have accounts and deeds in joint tenancy with rights of survivorship so their estates do not have to be probated. Either way, an estate tax return has to be filed, and an affadivit showing you are the sole survivor. You've got to have someone taking care of these matters. That person might be an attorney or a family member knowledgeable enough to handle it.

If you are wanting your MC to just have a check show up in the mail, you could have another family member handling the estate and money might arrive from the attorney's office who handled it. They would not receive a check right away after someone died, unless accounts were as mentioned above. Just depends on extent of estate and what exactly they will be receiving.

Also, which state you live in would make a difference.

It depends. Before my parents died, they made my sister and me co-owners of their checking and saving accounts, so we simply closed the accounts by writing a check.

Their insurance policies were paid off by check in a few weeks. We were also named beneficiaries of their CD's, so we cashed them in immediately. The house was put up for sale, and sold a few months later.

They had no investments, but the executor will usually cash them out, and the investment firm will write checks to the heirs after proof of ownership is presented to them.

If a will has been written, things progress faster than if the estate must go through probate. Here in Texas, probate is fairly simple, but in some states, it's a long, expensive process.

We got a check in the mail.

I tell you what happens when you inherit.

You get to become one of those rarest of all creatures: A full time writer!

The estate's attorney splits the inheritance with your attorney.

Dale

There are a number of variables. I was executor of my mom's living trust when she passed away a couple of years ago. It went in stages, with liquidating Mom's CDs and disbursing funds to her beneficiaries withing a month after her death. Then the sale of her condo (what a pain), the proceeds divided between the beneficiaries once the unit sold. It took a year because the real estate market turned sour right around then.

So in my case, I distributed checks from my mom's estate in two installments to all beneficiaries. I guess it was relatively painless as far as inheritances go, but that's because Mom planned it all out in advance. She was a sharp lady up to the day she died, bless her soul.

I have a friend whose husband just died and his estate is in probate. A living trust prevents that hastle of the court getting involved, which is why it wasn't much trouble (relatively speaking) for me as executor of my mom's estate.

If you're listed as having power of attorney for your parent(s) you would have the power to close accounts, sell property, collect on any insurance policies if applicable, pay all due taxes & fees, etc, then receive the remaining cash assets. If there are bonds and CDs, etc, you may need to terminate them to change them to your name and either pay an early withdrawal fee & more taxes, either at the time of withdrawal or by the next tax season. You would get different amounts of money at different times according to when things are done.

What Heron says is true of the EXECUTOR of an estate.

Power of Attorney is often misunderstood. . . Power of Attorney ceases upon death.

If the person who has Power of Attorney for a parent (or whomever) is to continue to have control of that person's estate, then he/she will have to be named executor by the court.

Exceptions (without being named executor by the court) would be as mentioned earlier - if you are listed on accounts as joint owner or beneficiary with pay on death stipulation, on land deeds as joint tenant with rights of survivorship, etc.

By the way, some of the states' statutes are online if a person wanted to look stuff up for their particular state.

HeronW said:

If you're listed as having power of attorney for your parent(s) you would have the power to close accounts, sell property, collect on any insurance policies if applicable, pay all due taxes & fees, etc, then receive the remaining cash assets. If there are bonds and CDs, etc, you may need to terminate them to change them to your name and either pay an early withdrawal fee & more taxes, either at the time of withdrawal or by the next tax season. You would get different amounts of money at different times according to when things are done.

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I think it depends on the state you live in, too. My mother died in Hawaii, and I live in Oregon, and neither state has an inheritance tax (yay!), so no taxes were due in that regard. However, I did have to file a return for my mom the year she died, but she owed no taxes. Early withdrawal fees? Didn't those die with the dinosaurs? Her investments were just CDs, so no fees when they were cashed in. The only taxes you pay in Hawaii and Oregon are on dividends made on investments with your inheritance, but not on the inheritance itself. I don't know about getting different amounts of money at different times because I was executor of her estate and the one who controlled all that. The beneficiaries just sat back and waited for their checks to arrive while I did all the work.

I just found out I inherited all of my grandmother's cookbooks. She really liked my cooking. I'm going to pick them up when I go on vacation to visit my mother.

I received a letter from the attorney with a copy of the Will. A few weeks later I received a check. I presume the lawyer (in a different country) sent the letter to see if it reached the right person at the right address or went undelivered.

I received a letter from the attorney with a copy of the Will. A few weeks later I received a check. I presume the lawyer (in a different country) sent the letter to see if it reached the right person at the right address or went undelivered.

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They are required by law (here anyway) to notify persons named in will & lineal heirs in case they want to protest anything at the court hearings. Many times, if those persons cannot be found (no address, etc), it will be ran in the newspaper so the attorney can prove they made every effort to let those persons be advised of proceedings.

If your letter had came back showing "undelivered", then he would have had proof he had, in good faith, made an attempt to notify you.

Whether it's parents or not, normally a beneficiary can suggest their preference as to direct deposit or check, subject of course to the Executor being satisfied he is paying the right person.

A check, for example, may be sent to a local Bank branch to be collected against proof of identity.

If the inhertance is not cash money it transfers to your name. Stocks go into your name (they don't sell them) or a house title goes into your name.

When you get a house, it's worth market value at the time you get it, not what was paid for it. If the value goes up from there, the capital gains tax is the market value when sold minus the market value when received.

If it has a mortgage and you want to sell it, the estate manages the mortgage and when you sell it, the amount paid out goes to the estate (that means you) minus the amount that is owed the mortgage company.

Also...

If any monies are in trusts, the power to handle those stays in the hands of the person who has been given control of the trust. Sometimes trusts have a time limit (the trust goes to you when you turn a certain age or marry, etc.)