How long do restrictive covenants apply on property willed to the state? If I devise real property to the state of Texas in my will, and it specifies that the homeless can not be evicted on the property, how long will that restriction apply for? Assume the state accepts the gift. If the clause reads, this property is to be managed for the best interest of the homeless, and the homeless shall never be evicted from the premise. If the state violates this clause, the property is to return to the heirs of the estate of Evan Carroll. In the above there is a restrictive covenant tied to an express clause of reverter. How long would such a clause apply to the state for? Forever?
Transfer of title must eventually occur, otherwise the property was never willed to another because the willing of the property is perpetually incomplete. One can place conditions on the transfer of title, but those conditions cannot last forever. They can last quite long, but there is a rule against perpetuities, especially created due to clauses constraining the transfer of of title in wills. This rule applies to a person who is transferring title, with a conditional clause that bars the full use of the property. If such a clause is limited, then it does not exist in perpetuity. The rule specifically addressed the will's call to reassign title if the transfer's clauses were violated. The maximum limitation historically was the lifetime of some person alive when the will was executed, plus 21 years, to permit an unborn grandchild to inherit. The reason this rule came about was due to the will of Henry Frederick Howard, the Earl of Arundel and Surrey. It effectively left the dead Earl managing his estates after his death, shifting properties that were bequeathed, based on the possibility of a &quot;more suitable&quot; heir being born after the Earl's death. This will eventually created the most complicated bit of common law that exists to date. In my totally amatuer attempt to summarize it; it is a combination of at least two ideas: a &quot;dead hand&quot; (deceased person) cannot guide the activities of the living forever transfer of property (title) must eventually be fully transferred Exceptions to the rule exist for conditional transfer of title back to the person who originally owned the property, but these exceptions cannot apply when the transfer is to a third party. This clause in Evan's will, &quot;If the state violates this clause, the property is to return to the heirs of the estate of Evan Carroll.&quot; would only be enforceable for a limited amount of time. First, the Estate of a dead Evan Carroll is not a lasting entity, eventually his estate would be closed. Finally, the transfer to the &quot;heirs&quot; of Evan Carroll would be a transfer to a third party, subject to the rule. Some states interpret their protections against the rule in different ways; but, nearly all states that have revoked the rule have done so by making a new rule (often with easier to manage time limits). A handful claim to have revoked the rule; but, they use other legal approaches to prevent this problem from occurring. Texas has extended the rule to 300 years while New South Wales, puts the limit at 80 years. Texas's extension seemed to be primarily to permit trust funds to operate legally long after the person establishing it had died. Consider what happens if such a rule doesn't exist. The title of the property could never be fully transferred, because the clause could never be proven to not have been violated. This would dramatically devalue the property, and clog the courts with suits claiming property held by one family for 100 years isn't theirs because of some evidence just uncovered about what happened 60 years ago. It also would massively complicate the selling of the property, because a clean title could never be proven. Note that this rule would have no bearing on a covenants not tied to the property's transfer of title. This rule even made it into a recent Disney case, which is explained far better than I can by the Legal Eagle, Devin James Stone
The community charges $300 annually for access to the community pool, to which I only actually used the first three years living here. It likely does not matter whether you used the pool or not. I was handed a case by a police officer today saying I have exactly 30 days upon receiving the letter to pay dues for the community pool for the past 8 years that I have not used it. I imagine the result of failure to pay the HOA fee is a lien on the property. I don't know whether foreclosure is an option but it might be. The communities HOA has made it incredibly difficult to contact to ask for a copy of the rules and regulations, since their automated phone system demands a pin of some sort to which it swiftly disconnects you if you do not have it. This is not likely to be a valid excuse for not paying the HOA dues. You almost certainly owe them regardless and you probably also owe any late charges or penalties associated with not paying on time. My question is, can they legally force me to pay this fee? Nobody can force you to pay. But if they present their case in court and win, the judge can force you to pay, have your assets seized, garnish your wages, or put you in jail if you refuse. That comes pretty close. Is there another way to obtain a copy of the community rules and regulations? Of course. Send certified letters requesting the CCRs to: The HOA office The government office where the deed is recorded If the CCRs are valid and binding something to that effect will be recorded on the deed. If so, the current valid and binding CCRs may be filed with the government or may only be available from the HOA. I am not a lawyer. If you have $2,400 to pay I suggest you pay it and stay current on all future payments. HOAs that actually notice missing fees are not to be trifled with. If you think they are making your life miserable now, you ain't seen nothing yet.
What does this paragraph mean? Line by line. I give my Residuary Estate This is a gift, effective when the person writing the Will dies, of everything that is left over after all debts and taxes are paid and after any other gifts already in the Will (e.g. leaving a car or a house or a Monet to someone in particular) have been given. to the said [Full Name] absolutely I'm going give [Full Name] a name so that it is easier to follow this explanation. [Full Name]'s name for purposes of this answer is &quot;Luna&quot;. This says to give all that stuff to Luna when the person who wrote the Will dies, if Luna is still alive for whatever the required amount of time is after the person who wrote the Will dies. The required survival time period is either in the boilerplate provisions of the Will, or in the relevant statute if the Will is silent on the question. The Will says &quot;absolutely&quot; because historically, someone who received gifts of property in deed or wills in England only got to keep it for their lifetime, unless it clearly specified otherwise, after which someone else would get it. But in this case, if Luna survives this long, Luna gets all of this stuff with no strings attached. and if [Name] shall fail to obtain a vested interest leaving issue who survive me then such issue shall take by substitution If Luna dies before the person who wrote the Will does, or doesn't stay alive for the required number of days afterwards, then Luna isn't entitled to this stuff. Luna's descendants get it instead (i.e. Luna's descendants &quot;take by substitution&quot; what Luna would have gotten if Luna had lived, instead of Luna's probate estate getting the stuff). and if there shall be more than one of such issue they shall take in equal shares per stirpes but so that no issue shall take whose parent is alive and so capable of taking. If Luna predeceases and has exactly one living descendant who is alive when the person who wrote the Will dies, and that living descendant lives the required number of days after the person who wrote the Will dies, then the sole living descendant of Luna gets all of the stuff that is left over when the person who wrote the Will dies. If Luna has more than one living descendant, the stuff that is left over when the person who wrote the Will dies, then Luna's descendants gets broken up the way described below, which is called per stirpes: Create one share for each child of Luna who is alive and survives Luna by the required amount of time. If Luna has only one living child, that child gets everything even if Luna's child has children of their own. Create one share for each child of Luna who didn't live for long enough after the person who wrote the Will's death, if the predeceased child has descendants who are alive and remain alive after the person who wrote the Will dies by the required amount of time. This share is then broken up into one sub-share for each child of the predeceased child who is alive when the person who wrote the Will dies and is still alive after the person who wrote the Will dies by the required amount of time, and one sub-share for each predeceased child of the predeceased child who has living descendants who remain alive for the requisite number of days. Continue this process until 100% of the the residuary estate has been assigned to someone and give them their share of it once the estate is settled. If someone lives past the minimum number of days to outlive the person who wrote the Will, and then dies, that person's share goes that person's probate estate. For visual learners, a per stirpes distributions of assets looks like this: A per stirpes distribution to descendants is the plain vanilla ordinary way to giving stuff to the descendants of a dead person when you don't know in advance who will outlive you. What if Luna predeceases with no living descendants? Usually, this paragraph of a Will will be followed by another paragraph called the &quot;ultimate contingent beneficiary&quot; which says who gets the stuff that's left over in the residuary estate if Luna predeceases the person who wrote the Will and has no living descendants. Often, the ultimate contingent beneficiary will be one or more distant relatives, a list of friends, or a charity. If there is no ultimately contingent beneficiary in the Will, but Luna and all of Luna's descendants predecease the person who wrote the Will, then it goes to the next of kin (a.k.a. &quot;heirs at law&quot;) of the person who wrote the Will, if there are any relatives of the person who wrote the Will who are close enough to qualify to inherit under English inheritances law. If there is no one closely enough related to the person who wrote the Will to qualify under English inheritance law, then the stuff &quot;escheats&quot; (i.e. is inherited by default) by the King (or Queen) of England, as the case may be. There are some circumstances when the Will can be ignored. Everything above explains what this language in the Will means. This isn't always what happens, however. There are several exceptions to the general rule that property goes to the people that the Will says it goes to. I won't list them all here, but it is important when a Will is being written to understand that this is the case. For example, if the person who wrote the Will leaves nothing in the Will to their spouse of thirty years as of the death of the person who wrote the Will, who has no assets of their own, then the Court will partially ignore what the Will says and give some of the residuary estate to the surviving spouse. Also, the Will only controls assets that are in the &quot;probate estate&quot;. Some assets pass at death in what are called &quot;non-probate transfers&quot; that are not controlled by what the Will says. And, finally, of course, if the Will was written when the person signing the Will was of unsound mind, the Will can be invalidated in a &quot;Will contest&quot; in the appropriate court if the person contesting the Will's validity can prove that the person signing it was of unsound mind at the time. This is mediocre legal writing This paragraph gets the job done, but it is not very well written by modern legal Will drafting standards. It is adequate and probably meets the standard of care for a lawyer who hasn't committed malpractice. Lawyers in England have been writing paragraphs like this one for three or four hundred years. But it is not &quot;best practices&quot; legal writing in a Will. Good modern legal drafting for a Will would be much easier for a non-lawyer to understand, in addition to being clear and unambiguous.
While the state, or a creditor, can initiate a probate if no one else does (if the state does so, the official in charge of this is called the "public administrator"), neither are required to do so. Also, sometimes a guardianship is converted to a probate, but this doesn't appear to have happened. This is a thankless job that probably doesn't make sense to bother with if estate liabilities exceed the assets of the estate, but most states have a "non-claim statute" that bars creditors claims, other than liens including property tax liens, after a certain amount of time after the death. So, even if the estate may have been insolvent at death, if enough time has elapsed, many of the potential claims may now be barred, making the estate solvent again. Siblings generally have priority for appointment over a nephew, so to be appointed yourself, you would ordinarily have to receive a renunciation of their right to serve as executor before applying to do so yourself, but some states disregard that priority if no one has taken action after a certain period of time. You would initiate probate by contacting an Alaska lawyer in the vicinity of the place he was domiciled at death. The lawyer can review the guardianship court file, determine if an executor was appointed, and determine if there are assets that could justify opening an estate relative to lien debts including Medicaid liens. If there are not, letting the assets be lost to a property tax lien may make more sense that spending money to transfer his property in an orderly fashion to his creditors with nothing in it for any of his family.
If the parents left the brother, let's call him Bob, full or partial ownership of the house in a will, or a long-term right of tenancy, then he has a right to live there. If they left no will, their property will be handled according to the local law on intestacy. The details vary from one Australian state to another, but if neither has a living spouse, their children will probably split the estate. This will probably include a share of the house, and so Bob will have a right to live there, unless a different division is made. Or the house could be sold and the proceeds split. Bob would not have a right to live there merely because he had been living there for some years, or even all his life. Nor would Bob have such a right if he had been caring for his parents, not for that reason alone. Everything depends on who winds up owning the house. Generally the owner or owners get to decide who may live in the house. A person could also be given or left a right of occupancy. A co-owner normally has a right to live in a house. But there is no automatic right of a child to live in his or her parents' house.
In California (where lost+found laws have been discussed quite a lot), this would be either "lost property" or "abandoned property". With abandoned property, you can do what you want. With lost property, it is legal to ignore it. If you take it, you have the obligation to try to return it to the owner. If you don't do that, it's theft. If you don't take it, you have no obligation whatsoever. Put it somewhere where the loser (the person who lost it) is more likely to find it, for example on the street. Don't take anything. Clarification for comments: There is a box. And the owner of the box is nowhere to be seen. That box is by definition lost or abandoned - it is abandoned if the owner got rid of it intentionally, it is lost if the owner is looking for it. We don't know. We can make guesses depending on the situation. No matter whether lost or abandoned, you are legally absolutely fine if you just ignore it. You have no reason to try to return it to its owner. If you don't make it your business, it's not your business. But if you decide you want the box, or bits of it, and it isn't abandoned (which is hard to know for sure), then you have to try to find the owner first, and if you don't find them, then you can keep it.
If three people inherited a house in equal shares, then a new deed should have been prepared and filed with the appropriate governmental authority (the county in most US states) before probate is closed. When that is done the authority of the executors over the house as executors has ended. However, if I understand you correctly, the two former executors are also two of the three heirs to the house. Thus they own a 2/3rds interest in the house. At least they can sell their interests without your consent, leaving you a minority owner with the purchaser owner a majority. In some jurisdictions they may be able to force a sale, paying you your share of the purchase price. But this would be because of their majority ownership, not because of their former status as executors. Addition: In some states co-owners who are joint tenants may not sell their interests without the consent of the other co-owners, but this is jnot true in North Carolina According to the site of the Hutchens Law office: ownership as tenants in common provides each party with the right to sell, gift, devise, or otherwise convey their interest in the property without the permission of the other owners. This means that the ownership interest is freely alienable or transferable. As a result, an owner may sell or give their interest in the property to anyone they want, or they may willingly or by judgment use their interest in the property to secure or satisfy a debt with a creditor. Therefore, parties entering into an agreement to purchase property as tenants in common should be aware that they may ultimately end up owning the property with a stranger. If this were to happen, there is a way out, but it may be costly. At any time, if the parties can't agree, any owner may petition the court for a partition of the property. The court could require one owner to buy another out or force the sale of the property. The court will decide the ultimate outcome based on equity. ... [I]f the intent of co-owners holding interest as joint tenants is to automatically transfer their interest at death to the survivor, the language must be on the conveying instrument as right of survivorship is not automatic with joint tenancy in North Carolina and if the language in not included, the decedent's interest will pass to his heirs. ... However, any owner has the right to convey their ownership interest during their life; and if they do, the survivorship agreement ends, and owners simply become joint tenants by operation of law. In North Carolina there seems to be little practical difference between co-owners who are tenants in common, and those who are joint tenants without a right of survivorship. But whichever form of co-ownership is chosen: tenants in common, joint tenants without a right of survivorship, or joint tenants with a right of survivorship, each of the co-owners has a right during his or her lifetime to sell, give away, or use as collateral on a loan his or her share of the property, without consulting the other co-owners. They cannot force the other co-owner(s) to sell, except by starting an action of partition in a court, when a judge would decide. An unrelated buyer might be unwilling to purchase only a 1/3 or 2/3rds interest, because the remaining co-owner(s) would still have full rights to use and occupy the house, can could sell to a different buyer. All co-owners are responsible for their proportionate shares of all expenses, including mortgage payments, repairs, and taxes.
In general, and in particular in New Jersey, a new owner takes possession subject to existing rental agreements, and in particular subject to existing leases, unless there is a provision in the lease to the contrary. This happens automatically, by law. Thus any lease is as enforceable against the new owner as it would have been against the old. But how enforceable is this arbitration agreement? How enforceable would it have been against the old owner O? The basic fact about a month-to-month tenancy is that either party may end it on one month's notice, for any reason or none. Moreover, when a new owner intds to occupy the premises personally, or use them for his or her family, the requirement to honor a previous lease is, in general, not applicable. T might be able to force N to go through arbitration, depending on the wording of the agreement, and on whether the written lease applies at all after the end of the first year (which it may well not). But on the facts as stated in the question, T would lose in arbitration as well as in court, and if there is any increased expense because of the arbitration, T would be obliged tom pay it. Let us look at the actual NJ law N.J.S.A. 2A:18-53 provides that: any lessee or tenant at will or at sufferance, or for a part of a year, or for one or more years, of any houses, buildings, lands or tenements, ... may be removed from such premises by the Superior Court, Law Division, Special Civil Part in an action in the following cases: a. Where such person holds over and continues in possession of all or any part of the demised premises after the expiration of his term, and after demand made and written notice given by the landlord or his agent, for delivery of possession thereof. The notice shall be served either personally upon the tenant or such person in possession by giving him a copy thereof or by leaving a copy of the same at his usual place of abode with a member of his family above the age of 14 years. [emphasis added] Section 2A:18-56 provides that: No judgment for possession in cases specified in paragraph &quot;a.&quot; of section 2A:18-53 of this Title shall be ordered unless: a. The tenancy, if a tenancy at will or from year to year, has been terminated by the giving of 3 months' notice to quit, which notice shall be deemed to be sufficient; or ? b. The tenancy, if a tenancy from month to month, has been terminated by the giving of 1 month's notice to quit, which notice shall be deemed to be sufficient; [emphasis added] Section 2A:18-57 provides that: If no sufficient cause is shown to the contrary when the action comes on for trial, the court shall issue its warrant to any officer of the court, commanding him to remove all persons from the premises, and to put the claimant into full possession thereof, and to levy and make the costs out of the goods and chattels of the person in possession. No warrant of removal shall issue until the expiration of 3 days after entry of judgment for possession, except as provided for in chapter 42 of this Title. Section 2A:18-61.1 provides that: No lessee or tenant or the assigns, under-tenants or legal representatives of such lessee or tenant may be removed by the Superior Court from any house, building, mobile home or land in a mobile home park or tenement leased for residential purposes, other than (1) owner-occupied premises with not more than two rental units or a hotel, motel or other guesthouse or part thereof rented to a transient guest or seasonal tenant; ... except upon establishment of one of the following grounds as good cause ... [emphasis in original] h. The owner seeks to retire permanently the residential building or the mobile home park from residential use or use as a mobile home park But note that good cause is not required for an owner-occupied dwelling with no more than two rental units. T would be wise to consult a lawyer knowledgeable about landlord/tenant law in NJ before attempting to contest the notice or eviction.