Do you need to apply for probate if the deceased asset is a relocatable home in a permanent park in NSW
NSW
- Thread starter Margaret E Morgan
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- nsw
Short answer:
If there's a will, then yes, you should do it,
if only because it reflects the testators' intentions.
In more practical terms, it can certainly help.
For example, banks, and Government departments (Centrelink, the ATO, Veterans Affairs),
may not (read "almost certainly won't") deal with anyone except an appointed executor.
The park operator may not either.
Beware of the term "Next Of Kin" - it has no legal meaning the way people sometimes think.
Have a look at this.
Long and wordy answer:
In practical terms (based on questions people have asked me over time...)
If there's a will, then yes, you should do it,
if only because it reflects the testators' intentions.
In more practical terms, it can certainly help.
For example, banks, and Government departments (Centrelink, the ATO, Veterans Affairs),
may not (read "almost certainly won't") deal with anyone except an appointed executor.
The park operator may not either.
Beware of the term "Next Of Kin" - it has no legal meaning the way people sometimes think.
Have a look at this.
Long and wordy answer:
In practical terms (based on questions people have asked me over time...)
- Lawyers often get asked questions in the line of
"But it's a simple estate, he didn't have much, can't we just split up his things and move on?"
Short answer is "no".
- Without a Grant of Probate, nobody has any authority to take, dispose of, or deal in, the deceased's "things".
(equally true of the house and the boat as of the chipper coffee cups).
No matter what was promised, or what people are expecting.
Until a grant, the estate is vested in the NSW Trustee and Guardian (what used to be called the "Public Trustee")
- Somebody will have to do all the stuff with registering the death, settling any debts,
sorting out Centrelink and the ATO etc.
In NSW, for a person with a valid will, this person is called an executor.
They are appointed by the Supreme Court - the transaction is called a Grant of Probate.
Probate is the executor's authority to act on behalf of the estate.
(eg to close a bank account, or pay bills, or sell a house, or even recover a rental bond, and, importantly, to distribute any assets).
- Until the work in item (2) above is complete, nobody else can come in and take any of the deceased's "things".
The Executor is not allowed to distribute until all the other administration is complete.
It follows then that a person who, for example, takes an item from the deceased's home
can in fact (and at law), stealing it.
This can be the case no matter what the value, no matter who was supposedly promised what,
and no matter what people say the deceased said.
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