Grandfather Passed Away; Promised Car to Me

My question involves personal property located in the State of: MD

my grandfather passed away in May leaving no will or estate, just a notorized will on a piece of paper. well, my mom rummaged through all his things and split it with the family. he had a '09 car that was PAID off before he died that he has promised to me and everyone knew/knows it so there is no fight over it. currently, i have the car in my poossesion still in his name with his insurance (which expiered already) sitting outside my house. how hard would the process be to put it in my mother's name and then my name? i really need to get on this but not sure if they will take it from me or what.

You contradict yourself. If he had a will on a piece of paper, he has a will. If he had assets when he died, he had an estate.
Your mother had not authority to distribute anything unless she was appointed to do so by the courts. If there isn't much in the estate, that's a pretty trivial thing. As to whether she can just title it to you or has to go through other steps depends on the will and if the estate was more than $20,000.

i don't consider the notorized piece of paper much of a will. it leaves the car he had in 1998 to my mother or any vehicle at the time. but i figured courts could override it so that's how i "contradicted" myself there. second, only thing he had was a car. he didn't own a house; he rented. she might not of had authority to hand out his personal items to his children and remaining brothers, but that was something that was decided among the family and i guess no one felt a need to take it to court. point of the matter, does she just have to go to the MVA/DMV(whatever), present his death certificate, and they put it in her name? after that, i'm sure she can just do whatever as to give it to me. not sure where to start.

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=lauraamazing;565537]i don't consider the notorized piece of paper much of a will.

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it doesn't matter what you consider it. What matters is if it meets the requirements of his state to be considered a legal will. If it does, then you need to present it for probate to be validated so it can be acted upon.

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it leaves the car he had in 1998 to my mother or any vehicle at the time. but i figured courts could override it so that's how i "contradicted" myself there.

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no, courts do not override wills. They really like to see them followed. In fact, so much so that they set aside an entire section of the court system to deal with this.

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point of the matter, does she just have to go to the MVA/DMV(whatever), present his death certificate, and they put it in her name?

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no

and if all he had, how did mom give anything to anybody and yet the car is still setting where it is?

He did have something. You supported that a couple times already by saying mom distributed his possessions.

knick nacks. pots and pans. photo albums. guns. however, the photo albums went to one son as said in notrized will and so did handguns. i mean he only had anything MAJOR. a car. all the rest is just petty things.

as said previously, if the amount was below a certain threshold, then it may not be a problem.

Since the photo albums, the handguns, and any vehicles were under the control of the will, it needs to be presented for validation. If it is considered a valid will, then the terms must be complied with (if possible). If it is not a valid will, then the vehicles, the photo albums, and the handguns are subject to distribution per the laws of intestate succession, just as with anything else that was not included in the will.

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Quoting jk

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If it is not a valid will, then the vehicles, the photo albums, and the handguns are subject to distribution per the laws of intestate succession, just as with anything else that was not included in the will.

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no idea what that means, sorry.

so what my mother needs to do is take the paper to the Circuit Court House and have them look that over somewhere in there and then action can be made upon transfer of the car from his name to her name?

some information:

http://registers.maryland.gov/main/


in this second one, be sure to pay attention to the section titled "Small Estates". It addresses how to deal with estates that are valued below $30k.

http://registers.maryland.gov/main/packets/infoguide.html

You also have to realize that if your grandfather had debts when he died, any property he owned (including the car, guns, and sometimes even personal effects) must be sold to attempt to satisfy those debts.

his credit was perfect when he died. but the hospital bill from the night of his death was like ten grand and his bills werent paid off. just kinda left. so idk if that ruined his credit but like i said, his credit was VERY VERY well off when he passed.

it has nothing to do with his credit. All that matters is if he owed money or not.

Since there is apparently a $10k debt owed, I would suggest that the car will need to be sold to pay the debt unless there is some exception in the law that exempts certain or certain amounts of property. Without a full review of the situation, it is impossible to say but I suspect you will not end up with the car.