Blog & Resources

My Grandmother died three years ago in Montgomery County, leaving me a lump sum in her Will. The house is sold, the taxes are paid but I have not received my inheritance. The executor will not return my calls. What can I do?

As the heir of a Montgomery County estate, you do have the right to force the Executor to provide you with a time line when you will receive your inheritance. If the executor will not give you one voluntarily, you can have your Montgomery County Orphans’ Court lawyer file a Petition for Accounting with the Montgomery County Orphans’ Court.

My mother transferred her Montgomery County home to me two years ago. She recently died. I am going to sell the house soon, but do I have to pay Pennsylvania Inheritance Tax?

Not in your case. The Pennsylvania Inheritance Tax of 4.5% applies to transfers to children at death, and includes all gifts made within one year of the date of death. If the house was transferred properly into your name two years ago, it will not be subject to the Pennsylvania Inheritance Tax.

We posted recently about attorney’s fees in Pennsylvania. Let’s take a look at how a dispute over fees actually plays out.

A Montgomery County Orphans’ Court case, DeVitis Estate, is a cautionary tale for executors. It shows what judges will do when faced with unexplained fees. In this case, the deceased named her daughter executor of the estate. Due to perceived foul play, two beneficiaries of the estate requested an audit of the estate and then filed objections to the accounting.

My husband died several years ago, and our son is still a minor. After my husband’s death, my father-in-law was killed in a car accident and his estate was opened in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. My father-in-law’s personal representative brought a lawsuit against the driver. My father-in-law had no Will, was not married and was survived by my husband’s brother and sister. Because he died without a will, a portion of my father-in-law’s estate passes to my son. The wrongful death suit is being settled, and I am being asked as my son’s mother to approve the settlement. That settlement divides the settlement amount 90% as Wrongful Death and 10% as Survival. Does this division matter to my son?

First, if your Mother’s attorney is serving as the executor and will also be providing your mother’s estate legal services in Montgomery County, the attorney should not be charging both an executor’s fee and a fee for legal services based solely on a percentage of the estate.

Ensuring the financial well being of family after death is a fundamental concern for clients when estate planning. By Trust or by Will, various strategies exist to satisfy that concern. Keeping up to date on real cases helps ensure our strategies are appropriately tailored to your needs.

The Orphans’ Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania recently ruled on one family’s strategy in Zucker Estate. This case provides insight into how accurate trust drafting can achieve your financial support goals. The court focuses on the marital trust and critical difference between exclusive and non-exclusive powers of appointment. A factual background will serve as a point of reference for the key takeaways in Zucker.

Changing your bank account into a Joint-Ownership account with your daughter or making her the account’s Payable-On-Death beneficiary avoids probate, but these are different tools addressing different situations and goals.

The amount of Pennsylvania Inheritance Tax due will depend on the beneficiary’s relation to the deceased. For example, the tax rate for siblings is 12% while the tax rate for someone who was only a close friend is 15%.

The Pennsylvania Inheritance Tax is levied on the net estate value at the date of death, meaning the fair market value of the estate’s assets less the expenses of the estate administration and existing debts.

Beneficiaries of Montgomery County estates will often approach us asking our help in keeping an eye on the estate’s executor. This is often the result of the executor not sharing information about the estate with the beneficiary, the executor’s unreasonable delays, or when the executor’s behavior has raised the beneficiary’s concern.