Claims against your Florida inheritance? Palm Beach appeals court shows the importance of responding quickly.

When you open up a probate in Florida estate administration, other people can file claims of interest against the estate.  This means that if a person believes they are entitled to something the decedent owned when he died, they will bring a lawsuit in order to gain an ownership interest in the asset.

That’s exactly what happened in Adams v. Estate of Thomas Henderson:

• Twylah Adams was not listed in the Florida probate, or included in any trusts, left by Thomas Henderson.
• Adams filed a claim against the Florida estate for an interest in the decedent’s home, in which she claimed an ownership interest.
• Adams’s claim was based on her allegation that she had been in a romantic relationship with the decedent until his death.
• She claimed that during the time they were dating they lived together, and she paid for improvements to his home and other expenses associated with the Florida home.

Adams was waiting for a response to her claim from the estate, but the personal representative of the Florida estate did not file a response.  Adams went to Palm Beach probate court to see default judgment in her favor, and the court granted this to her.  Still there was no response from the representatives of the estate.  For good measure, Adams went back to finalize judgment, which was granted, without opposition, of course.  Once the estate realized that they just lost an interest in the decedent’s house, they filed a motion to theFlorida probate court seeking a reversal of the judgment granting Adam’s claim of interest, and blamed the delay on their attorney.

Palm Beach probate litigation attorneys know the importance of filing timely responses to claims against Florida estates.  And, when a response can’t be timely for one reason or another, Florida Probate attorneys should request leave from the court to file after the deadline.  In any case, avoiding the scenario above was an easy task that the representatives of Henderson’s estate let slip through their fingers.  And as a result, they lost a significant portion of their Florida estate.

See http://www.pankauskilawfirm.com/ for videos and information on Wills in Florida, Florida Trust Law, Estate Planning, and Estate Administration in Florida.