Houston Estate Administration

Inheritance and Disbarred Attorney Leads to Messy Family Dispute

Published on: October 5, 2015 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

When Fritz Detmer passed away, he left his son, Tols Detmer, an estate worth several hundred thousand dollars. The terms of the will were that Tols was not to get his inheritance until he turned 18.

Now, Tols is 19 and he is suing his own mother, Charlinette Detmer, for hundreds of thousands of dollars he says she improperly received from the estate.

The lawsuit alleges that Charlinette was supposed to receive $60,000 from the estate, but instead the lawyer administering the estate, Peter Capece, gave her $311,000. It is alleged that Capece gave Charlinette this windfall because she knew that Capece was misappropriating money from the estate for his own benefit.

Is the Rent Due When Tenant Passes Away?

Published on: September 30, 2015 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

An aging woman posed a question to The New York Times “Ask Real Estate” columnist regarding her rented apartment. The woman asked if her daughter would be responsible for the older woman’s signed lease, if she passed away while still a tenant in the apartment. Her question appeared in a recent column, “A Noisy Cafe Next Door.”

The expert’s opinion?

The woman’s estate would owe on the lease and need to make regular payments. However, New York law does provide that the tenant’s estate can attempt to find a new tenant which the landlord must accept if reasonable.

IRS No Longer Accepts Checks Exceeding $100 Million

Published on: September 23, 2015 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

If you are planning to issue your next $100 million tax payment to the IRS via check, better make arrangements for an alternate payment method. The IRS has announced that it will no longer accept payments by check in excess of $100 million.

In the modern grocery store, scanners are used by people who bag their own groceries and pay with a swipe of a credit card. Express lines ferret out the quick buyers from the people stocking their homes for the next six months. Despite these advances and time saving technology, there’s one thing that drives everyone on the checkout line crazy.

That is when a person in front of them pays with a check.

IRS Announces New Estate Tax Rule; Implementation Guidelines Not In Place

Published on: September 22, 2015 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

The IRS enacted a new law that required any estates filing Form 706 after July 31, 2015 to report the value of the estate within 30 days after filing the estate form. However, the IRS never issued any implementing regulations for the law. As a result, the IRS has recently announced that the requirements will be postponed until February 29, 2016. Mondaq.com reported this development in an article titled “IRS Postpones New Requirements For Estates To Report Asset Values.”

This does not mean that estate administrators should do anything different than they were already planning to do. It is still important to get proper valuations of estate assets as they will have to be reported for estate tax purposes.

The IRS will eventually implement regulations for the new rules and estate administrators should be ready to file at that time. On the upside, the postponement may give some administrators a little more breathing room.

Finalize Your Estate Plan for Planning Your Estate Sale!

Published on: September 21, 2015 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Baby Boomers have long dictated trends and styles. Today’s Boomers continue to establish trends as they begin their down-sizing moves. Estate sales are a growing niche as older adults scale back their lifestyles. Estate sales have become big business as aging Americans decide that they’d rather let someone else handle the details, according to the Detroit Free Press article, "Estate sales boom with aging demographics."

What is an estate sale? It is an auction where one’s household belongings are put up for sale. They are popular for buyers because estate sales often contain older, valuable possessions that can be purchased at a discount. In fact, some people even make a living out of buying items at estate sales and selling them for retail elsewhere, such as their own shops or on eBay.

As a result, there appears to be two groups of “sellers” who might consider having an estate sale.

Rival Auction Houses Fight for $500 Million Art Collection

Published on: September 15, 2015 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Estate plans can outline everything from the disposition of family heirlooms to the distribution of vast land and property holdings. Recently, the $500 million art collection of the estate of shopping center magnate A. Alfred Taubman was in the news. Taubman’s collection is thought to be one of the most valuable private art collections in the world.

Recently the New York Times published "Sotheby's to Auction A. Alfred Taubman's $500 Million Trove," detailing the war between the rival auction houses as they fought for the right to auction the collection.

Christie's and Sotheby's went back and forth with Taubman's family for months in an effort to win the bid. Both auction houses created mock catalogues for the collection and put exceptional effort into their presentations. The interesting question, however, is why there was a war in the first place?

Robin Williams’ Estate Battle Continues

Published on: September 10, 2015 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Divorce lawyers know that some of the most intense fights between a couple can erupt over the most insignificant item —- a matchbook collection or a set of souvenir spoons from family vacations.

The stuff being fought over serves as a proxy because the parties are angry with each other and want to fight over something. The same thing happens in estate law when heirs do not get along and resent each other. The heirs will fight over those very same inexpensive souvenir spoons.

However, in estate law these battles do not make it to court as often as they do in divorce law because divorcing couples are already in court. Most of the time heirs feuding over junk find it cost prohibitive to hire attorneys. Robin Williams' estate might be an exception.