If someone dies and you are in their will, does a laywer have to find where you are to give you the $ or gift?

Question

Otherwise, who does the money and gift go to??

(In the United States)

Answer 1

As an estate planning attorney, this question gets asked quite a bit. As of my posting, the answers given have been close. Let me try to elaborate. When a will or trust is created, the beneficiaries are named within the estate planning document WITH the last known address of said beneficiary.

Now the confusing stuff: You didn't differentiate between if the beneficiaries are alive or dead at the time the contents of the will are distributed. That's a very important point to know.

If the person is still alive, or presumed to be alive, it's usually the job of the Personal Representative (PR) to track down the beneficiaries as the PR usually is a family member or friend of the decedent that drafted the will. Therefore, it would make sense for the PR to know who the beneficiaries are, as opposed to the attorney. An example: Mom drafts a will leaving her son a gift, her daughter a gift and Mom's favorite nephew a gift. Likewise, within the will, Mom names the Son to be the PR. It makes sense that Son would be able to track Mom's favorite nephew down to give nephew his gift. Sure the attorney COULD do it, but at $200+ per attorney hour, why not let the PR do it for free? So, the PR finds the nephew and gives nephew the gift.

BUT, what if Nephew is dead? Then what happens? It all depends on how the will was drafted. If there's an anti-lapse clause within in the will, then that means that IF nephew pre-deceases Mom, the gift to Nephew should be given to an alternative person (whomever Mom names as the alternate to that gift in her will). OR, Mom’s will could say that Nephew’s gift simply passes to Nephew’s children (if he has any). If there is not an anti-lapse clause within the will to name an alternative beneficiary for the gift, it will lapse into the Mother's residual estate and be distributed to whoever is named as the beneficiaries to the residual estate.

Ok, so you say, what the hell is a 'residual estate:? Basically, the residual estate is all the crap left over that's NOT specifically distributed BY NAME in the will. So in our example. Mom leaves Son the car, Daughter the House, Nephew the fine china. Everything else is miscellaneous crap that no one would really want anyway. So you name people (usually Son, Daughter and Nephew equally) to receive the "left over" that wasn’t already specifically named in the will (i.e. the car, house and fine china). If Nephew is dead and the fine china gift lapses back into Mom's residual portion of her estate, then Son/Daughter will just divvy up the "left over crap", which now includes the fine china, and split it between themselves.

You know all the times you see "Estate Sale" signs which is nothing more than a yard sale? That's what's happening. They are selling off the rest of "Mom's junk" and then splitting the money between themselves.

The ONLY TIME anything would escheat back to the State of residence of the decedent is if there are NO OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS alive to give Mom's possessions to! That means, every person named in the will/trust is dead, plus, there are no family members alive either. It's pretty hard to NOT have some family member alive to give the possessions too! It goes: spouse, children, parents, siblings, grandparents, cousins, aunt or uncles, nieces or nephews, and there may even be a few more branches out from the tree. It's nearly impossible for the decedent’s estate to NOT go to some family member somewhere in the family tree.

So there you have it!

Answer 2

they have to try, but not super hard. they have to post in news papers where the deceased lived.

if the person cannot be found and there are other ascertainable heirs, the money (or whatever) goes back into the estate and is considered residue, so it gets divided evenly among the devisees or goes to the person who was bequeathed the residue.

Answer 3

Yes there is a conserted effort to locate all Heirs! If not found the money would go to the state I believe!

Answer 4

If you are named in the will it goes to you unless your crime came with an monetary settlement to be paid to the victim.
If they can't locate you, then it goes into a state unclaimed money fund and you can find it yourself as each state posts lists of unclaimed funds online.

Answer 5

It is the duty of the executor/executrix to find you. If there is no way to find you, it is their responisblity to decide what should be done.