Is there any way to find out if a deceased person owns properties across the United States? My wife and her two siblings had an absentee father who recently died of cancer. He left their mom for another woman about 12 years ago when they were all still children. They hadn't heard much from him since then. When he left their mother, he was quite a wealthy man, having multiple properties around the world and hundreds of thousands in stocks and bonds. His now widow, who is the administrator of his estate, claims said estate is only worth a few thousand dollars. It's a really convenient number that denies the children any inheritance. It was in his character to continue buying investment properties, and with some research, we've found his name attached to five different properties in four different US states (there may be a lot more, this is just what I've found online). It's possible that he doesn't own these, but we find it generally hard to believe that his estate is worth so little. We're over in Europe. It gets a bit more complicated with the fact that we are all different nationalities and living in different countries, but simply put: is there any way that we can search for properties that he owned before he died? Any possible suggestions are appreciated.
Short Answer Not really. Your first step should probably be to hire a private investigator to do an asset search for you. Longer Answer Real property records in the United States are maintained on a county by county basis and there are roughly 3000 counties in the United States (in Louisiana, a county is called a &quot;parish&quot;). There is not even a centralized state level governmental database of real estate ownership. And, many smaller rural counties don't make their real property records available over the internet. Moreover, in New England, lots of key records are maintained at the town level (all property in New England is part of some New England town of which there would be many in each county, and county government mostly handles the court system rather than other rural services). Also, contrary to the suggestion of BlueDogRanch in the comments, a Will would frequently not contain a list of the real estate owned by the decedent, although the lawyer who drafted the Will may have taken notes indicating the real property owned by that person at the time it was drawn up. More commonly, a Will will set forth a formula for dealing with property. And as you indicate in the comments, there may be no will to find in any case. You should also ask if there is a trust in place, however, as some people set up a trust and dispense with a will. Businesses are usually registered with a state secretary of state. These records reveal a registered agent and sometimes managers or directors of businesses, but not the ownership of businesses. It is possible to set a business up so that it has no obvious ties to an individual. Searching by the decedent's business and home addresses and the names of spouses and business associates and lawyers for the decedent, can sometimes reveal businesses that don't have the decedent's name attached to them. Another public database that can be searched (at a price and with some technical expertise) is the personal property lien database also known as a &quot;UCC Search&quot; for the Uniform Commercial Code that requires that personal property liens be disclosed in this central filing place. Furthermore, there is no central registry of financial accounts. Incidentally, there is also no central database of divorce records in the United States. The court clerk of each court with jurisdiction to grant a divorce maintains these records separately. Keep in mind, however, that unless a divorce decree said otherwise, usually a man has no obligation to leave his children anything at his death as an inheritance if he has a Will in every U.S. jurisdiction (unlike many European inheritance laws that require that a parent make bequests of some amount to children in the absence of special circumstances). Strategies for Asset Searches A variety of approaches are available to locate assets, although some of these are less viable when there is a widow who is the executrix of the estate who is in control of the situation. Ask for an inventory and accounting of the estate and any trusts. Normally, the person who administers an estate must prepare an inventory of assets owned at death and an accounting of the disposition of assets at death. A copy of the Will must also be provided. You can also file a demand to receive notice of all proceedings in a probate estate. Often these documents only need to be provided upon a written request. This is an incomplete record. It doesn't cover transfers by gift prior to death, nor does it cover assets that are in joint ownership with a right of survivorship, nor does it cover assets with a beneficiary designation or a transfer on death instruction. If he had a trust and you had any interest in the trust, the trustee is obligated to provide inventory and accounting information and a copy of the pertinent portions of the trust to you upon request. Ask if he filed any estate tax returns (Form 706) or gift tax returns (Form 709) during his life. If he had an estate of about $5 million or more at his death, he would have had to file an estate tax return (Form 706), even if no estate tax was actually due. This is due nine months after the date of death. Unlike a probate inventory, a Form 706 captures both assets that pass via a Will (called probate assets) and assets that pass by a joint ownership or beneficiary designation or trust (called non-probate assets). If he made large gifts to anyone other than his spouse during life, they would have had to be reported on a gift tax return (Form 709). This is due on April 15, of the year following the year in which the gift is made unless an extension of time to file is obtained. This would reveal large transfers to trusts that he made during life. If he was wealthy but got around having to file a Form 706 by making lots of big lifetime gifts, there would be filings of Form 709 that would disclose those gifts. Review the decedent's personal financial records. These are usually kept at a home or office. Statements and records for various investments are often kept there. Also, bank statements can often be clues that can reveal other assets. For example, usually collectible items like art or gold coins would be purchased with a credit card or checking account and the purchases could clue you into the need to look for those assets. Of course, getting access to these records could be hard if you are not in control of the estate. Determine if there is a safety deposit box or safe, and if so, review the contents. Often deeds to real estate, certificates of title, stock certificates for closely held companies, coupon savings bonds, and other important documents are kept there. Loan application forms can also be a great resource as they require a full disclosure of assets and there is an incentive not to omit assets in filling one out. Of course, getting access to this could be hard if you are not in control of the estate. Collect the decedent's mail over the course of a year. Almost all real estate gives rise to a property tax bill at least once a year and more often twice a year, and financial accounts issue statements at least once a year in most cases and often monthly or quarterly. Of course, getting access to this could be hard if you are not in control of the estate. Pull a credit report, then repeat about a year later. Credit reports reveal who the decedent had accounts with, which can be a one stop shopping list for bank statements to obtain and review. They also capture accounts that the decedent won't get in the mail because there is a bad address. By a year out from the date of death, any big business creditor that isn't sending mail (e.g. because the creditor is sending bills to an email address you aren't aware of or don't have access to) will show up as delinquent in a credit report. Substantial credit is usually only granted to people with lots of wealth. If there is no debt or only little debt on a credit report, this tends to corroborate the idea that there is little wealth. In particular, credit reports reveal outstanding real property mortgages and personal property secured loans with financial institutions that are outstanding, which can be used to locate assets. You may need a private investigator's assistance to access credit records if you are not administering the estate. Look at the decedent's most recent income tax return or two. If the decedent didn't keep them, a transcript can be obtained from the IRS. Of course, getting access to this could be hard if you are not in control of the estate. But, you could always ask. Investment income lines will reveal any financial accounts that generate interest or dividends or capital gains (although it won't capture &quot;coupon bonds&quot; that only generate income when redeemed, like U.S. savings bonds or no interest checking accounts or closely held C corporation stock that doesn't pay dividends). There will be a &quot;Schedule K&quot; contribution to the tax return of income and expense items from any S-corporations and any closely held partnerships, LLCs or business trusts that had income or losses in that year. Residential real estate will normally give rise to property tax and mortgage interest deductions (unless there is no mortgage or the mortgage is small, in which case the Standard Deduction for personal deductible expenses will be claimed). Investment real estate may have generated rental income, depreciation deductions, and/or mortgage interest deductions (even if the decedent did not otherwise itemize deductions) and at a minimum there ought to be property tax payment deductions. Contact the attorney who drafted the Will, if known. While a Will rarely contains a detailed list of assets, the attorney drafting it usually prepares a list of the major assets that someone owned at the time it was drafted and keeps a set of those notes in the file. This may not be useful if the Will was drafted many decades ago (many people draft their first Will when they join the military or get married or first have kids and never change it). But, it may be helpful if it was drafted recently. An attorney may decline to speak with you on the basis of attorney-client privilege, however, if there is an executrix in place already managing the estate. Obviously, this doesn't work if he did no estate planning and plenty of people die without a will. Less than half of deaths even give rise to a probate proceeding at all, because lots of people die poor or don't have any probate assets at death. Hire a private detective. Private detectives live less glamorous lives than you'd think. One of the most common jobs that a private detective is hired to do is to locate assets for a creditor or for a probate estate. They have access to proprietary databases that are not available to the general public. But, they aren't cheap. In your case, this may be the only really viable solution, and while they aren't cheap, they know what they are doing and would probably be more efficient and more complete in their search than you would be. You can learn a lot with a few thousand dollars. Also, if the PI's investigation reveals substantial U.S. assets, you will probably be able to hire a lawyer who will accept payment when concealed assets are secured from the probate estate (perhaps with interest or on a contingent basis). So, hiring the PI is probably a higher priority than hiring the lawyer as a first step. Hire a lawyer A lawyer can efficiently demand information from the widow who is the executrix through formal channels. More importantly, if your PI discovers that assets have been concealed, your lawyer could arrange to have the widow removed from the job of administering the estate and have one of your family members, or a neutral third party professional, appointed to administer the estate correctly. And, an estate administrator can use the tools discussed above to do a more complete and accurate search for assets than a PI could.
Every state requires at least two witnesses to a will unless it is entirely written in your own handwriting. A lawyer as a witness is fine. A spouse as a witness is not ideal as she would be an interested party if there was a dispute over whether it was executed. It may not be prohibited, but I would never do that in my practice ever. I discontinued a will signing just last week because we only had a lawyer and a spouse and not other witnesses. I would be somewhat concerned.
united-kingdom To extend on @ohwilleke's answer about US inheritance tax, I can answer the UK side of things. UK inheritance tax does not apply to inheritances from abroad, unless that person was domiciled in the UK or some of their assets were in the UK. If you are not a UK resident for tax purposes (which, from the context of your question is unlikely), then you wouldn't even have to pay tax on the interest you earned from depositing the inheritance. If the deceased were taxed for being domiciled in the UK, and the US taxed your inheritance, you'd actually qualify for tax relief from HMRC based on what you'd already paid the IRS. If you are not domiciled in the UK for tax purposes, and neither was the decedent you would owe precisely zero to HMRC in the UK. More info can be found here: https://www.taxoo.co.uk/uk-resident-receiving-inheritance-from-abroad/
As a legal matter, you need to call or visit your local police station, report that you found some lost money, answer their questions honestly and dispassionately (they don't care about your hate etc. unless it's causing an active situation they have to deal with, and even then they don't much want to hear you go on about it), and then let them deal with it. You can tell your neighbor, if he inquires, that you have handed the matter to the local police and he can inquire with them about claiming it; feel free to ask the police to affirm that's the suitable course of action. You can expect to be given legal possession of it if they are unable to determine the true owner in accordance with local law. You can ask the police for details on that, though they'll probably just tell you as a matter of procedure without prompting.
Why do you think they have the same shareholders? There’s no reason to believe that they are related corporations just because they share an address. I am shareholder and director of 4 corporations. 3 have the same shareholders in the same proportion. The other has different shareholders. All of them have their registered office at my accountant’s premises. It’s a small suburban practice so there are probably only a few hundred companies at that address. A large city practice would have thousands or tens of thousands. The property management company probably provides the same service.
Sounds like you are doing this search surreptitiously. If not, the process is the same, except for asking the lawyer himself. Regardless of the actual value of knowing a lawyer's trial experience - the value and knowledge of an attorney is much more than trial experience, and the best indicators of experience and judgement are the least public aspects of a lawyer's work - there are two major sources of information: public search engines and court record systems. Your searches will yield a lot of raw data in terms of personal names, case names and legal documents that you will need to use your own judgement when analyzing. Google: Best thing to do is start with Google and the lawyer's name. That may sound simplistic, but a simple Google search will give you any firms he is associated with, any news articles with his name in conjunction with trial cases, professional affiliations, and more. Once you find any references, you will find case names, names of past clients, and more. Search again. Follow all the rabbit trails. Google doesn't typically show search results from commercial databases and library catalogs. Most public libraries have access to commercial journal and magazine databases that cover thousands of titles, including law journals, as well as databases of historical newspapers; if not, university libraries do. You may need to go to a state or provincial law college to access legal journals. Contact the people - past clients, etc. - you find and ask them about the lawyer and the trials in question. I doubt very much any lawyer will have anything more to say that you need to talk to him yourself. Bear in mind that if you misrepresent yourself to people you contact about the lawyer - you say you're looking for a long lost cousin on the pretext of finding out information about the lawyer and his cases - you're treading a fine legal line called pretexting. Pretext is legally defined as a reason for an action which is false while offered to cover up the true intention. If you pretext, it can come back to bite you. Court records: Find the court record system for your jurisdiction. These will greatly vary, and vary between civil and criminal courts. Google will lead you to the website of the court jurisdiction in question; there will be different methods of access to the court records systems. The big problem you're up against is that many cases are settled out of court, and there will be no records in court systems. And if there are records, you will have to parse the decisions to find out if the lawyer in question was actually involved. As a last resort (other than asking the lawyer himself), hire an unemployed just-graduated law student to research for you :)
A deed executed during life trumps a will. The other siblings would have to argue: Your mom did not have the capacity to execute the deed (which is a very low standard in terms of her capacity). The deed was procured from undue influence from you (which requires them to meet a high bar of proof). The deed was really the implementation of an agreement for you to hold the property in trust for everyone (which requires some affirmative evidence of this intent).
Normally, a recorded deed is taken at face value. If Bob acquires a house and conveys the house to Bob and Clark, his cousin, a joint tenants with right of survivorship, or pays for 99% of the price of a house and directs that it will be deeded to Bob and Clark as joint tenants with right of survivorship, the normal interpretation of that transaction is that Bob made a gift of an undivided one half interest in the property with right of survivorship to Clark. It sounds like the fact pattern is that Bob dies before Clark, giving Clark 100% title of record to the house subject to the mortgage, and Bob's heirs are not cool about that fact and would like to escape that consequence. This is a tall order for Bob's heirs. Normally, at least two important rules of evidence will preclude admission of testimony to the contrary. One is the parole evidence rule. This excludes as a matter of law evidence of discussions entered into prior to execution of an unambiguous written instrument that is not on its face incomplete, even if other evidence, called &quot;extrinsic evidence&quot; is available. The other is the dead man's statute, which is quite tricky in its technical application, but is basically designed to prevent an interested party from offering self-serving testimony that economically benefits them about what a deceased person said. The classic examples would be &quot;I'll sell you these gold bars for $10&quot;, or &quot;I'm giving you this painting&quot;, or &quot;I agree to let you live in my house after I die rent free for 11 months.&quot; A statement regarding an intended ownership interest in joint tenancy with right of survivorship real estate asserting that it is not 50-50 when nothing on the face of the deed suggests that this is case might be barred by the dead man's statute since these are statements of a dead man that favor the person offering the evidence. But, as I say, the application of the rule is quite technical. Also, to the extent that any third-party like a lender or a judgment creditor of the surviving joint tenant gets a lien or other property right in the property that is recorded, and that person had no knowledge of the claims of ownership outside real property records of the relative rights of the joint tenants, that evidence couldn't be used to impair or reduce the third-party's rights in the property by virtue of the recording statutes. If a dispute arose while the co-owners were alive at a time when there were no disputed claims of third-parties to the property, the joint tenancy would be easy to severed into a tenancy-in-common, and the actual relative contributions and right of the parties could be litigated in court with the testimony of those parties. But, usually, the four unities are in practice, a consequence of a joint tenancy with right of survivorship deed being prepared and recorded, rather than primarily being a condition precedent to it. If a single deed is executed that says that grantee are two or more people who are described as joint tenants with right of survivorship, then the legal consequence of that deed is that the co-owners become equal owners with a right of survivorship and unlimited right to possession of the whole. Also, even though it isn't standard, it isn't impossible for property to be in a tenancy-in-common which a side agreement to make a transfer upon death to the remaining tenant-in-common, even if it isn't a true joint tenancy with right of survivorship. So, if one proved by some competent and admissible evidence that a 50-50 ownership was not intended and that it wasn't a true canonical joint tenancy, this wouldn't necessarily invalidate the survivorship provisions on the face of the deed. A judge would be more likely to treat the deed as a non-standard non-probate transfer at death than to treat it as a tenancy-in-common without a right of survivorship, despite language of survivorship on the face of the recorded deed. Now, something other than equal co-ownership might be admissible for some purposes, like tax consequences, but that wouldn't go to who gets the property when a co-owner of the property dies. From an evidentiary standpoint, the case would [be based upon] . . . non-will ledgers, third party banking transactions, and letters of evidence that show the decedent undertook full responsibility for expenses related to the acquisition and maintenance of the property. The joint tenant was involved in the deed and mortgage issuance by the decedent for the sole purpose of mortgage qualification (i.e. credit requirements) This doesn't sound very convincing. First, there is nothing inconsistent with a joint tenancy with right of survivorship with one co-owner being the person who provides the funds for purchasing the home and handling all of the maintenance and expenses. This is more common than not in the case of a married couple or pair of unmarried domestic partners that own the real property as joint tenants with right of survivorship and it used to be even more common. Second, a lender would almost always require that all people obligated on the mortgage be owners of the property, and that all owners of the property be obligated on the mortgage. (Strictly speaking, in California, it would probably be a deed of trust rather than a mortgage, but that is functionally equivalent.) But, it wouldn't be very common as a commercial requirement to insist on joint tenancy with right of survivorship as opposed to tenancy-in-common ownership. Also since providing credit to a transaction is something of value, getting an ownership interest in the property in exchange isn't beyond the realm on possibility and plausibility in a deal that isn't entirely arms length but isn't entire a gift either. Providing credit is probably sufficient consideration to support the deal as a binding contractual agreement. Now, the best strategy might be a letter or exchange of letters that amount to an agreement. This wouldn't bind the mortgage company, but might have some relevant. Still, if the letters predate the execution of the joint tenancy deed, the parole evidence rule might keep the letters out of evidence. Some sort of express trust theory, treating the letters as a trust agreement, might if the language was right, be a stronger legal argument. I'm trying to wrap my head around how a court would interpret documentation vs. intent with regard to the joint tenancy ownership of real property. The key point being that the decedent didn't 'generally' pay for the property, but always paid for it. This is almost completely irrelevant. It is consistent with the alternative characterization of the transaction, but it is also consistent with the deed terms. In particular, if the decedent described the remaining joint tenant as a 'renter' during an interval of co-habitation, and no financial transactions between the two took place subsequent to that. I could imagine bringing a legal action to reform the deed, but the threshold of proof to win that action is pretty high. Absent some sort on undue influence or abuse of a confidential relationship, I have a hard time seeing a deed like this being reformed by a court to reflect a different kind of transaction, even if that was the original intent of the parties, but it isn't impossible if the right facts and evidence were available (which the dead man's statute, again, heavily constrains). If Bob was defrauded by Clark, I could also imagine some sort of legal remedy being available. But it is hard to think that Bob who was the primary mover in the deal would have been defrauded by Clark in this fact pattern. In California, the relevant case law seems to be Kershman v Kershman, Milian v DeLeon, and Cosler v Norwood Kershman v. Kershman is not on point. It is a divorce case dealing with the issues of marital v. separate property under California's community property regime which is an entirely different body of law that doesn't apply to unmarried co-owners of property. Milian v. De Leon is more on point, involving unmarried people with unequal contributions to the property who take title by a deed that says joint tenancy. it found that, “once the court in a partition action has determined that a true joint tenancy exists, it may not order reimbursement or contribution on account of differences in the amounts the parties have paid toward the initial acquisition of the property.” Milian v. De Leon (1986) 181 Cal.App.3d 1185, 1195. (Source) This holding is the standard common law rule. It isn't isn't really relevant here, however, because that case applies in the context of a partition action while the co-owners are alive, and not after death when the survivorship feature causes the surviving co-owner to be sole owner by operation of law. Cosler v. Norwood is a much older case, from 1950, and seems to stand for the proposition that the language of the deed regarding equal ownership that flows from calling the co-owners joint tenants can be overcome by extrinsic evidence in the context of a partition action, although it is arguably implicitly repealed by Milian v. De Leon. But it isn't on point for the same reason that Milian v. DeLeon in not on point - it considers the rights of two living parties in a partition action dispute (i.e. a lawsuit to untangle co-ownership of property), not concerning the validity of a survivorship provision in the deed in the presence of unequal contributions to the acquisition price. Changes to the survivorship rights do not obviously at all flow from the existence of unequal contributions.