Probate Estate Jurisdiction Issues
I recently assisted a client who is a real estate agent and an extended family member of a deceased individual who owned undeveloped lots in Hickory County, Missouri. The decedent was a resident of Miami County, Kansas at the time of his death. My client hired an attorney to file a petition for determination of decent in the Miami County Probate Court. The petition complied with the Kansas Probate Code, listing the decedent’s biographical information, the petitioner’s information, listed the 4 children of the decedent (two of home died in the years after the decedent died in2016), and identified the assets owned by the decedent at death, the undeveloped lots in Hickory County. The statutes having been met, the Kansas probate judge signed the Decree of Descent.
My client then attempted to record the decree of descent with the Hickory County, Missouri Recorder of Deeds office. The problem that my client discovered is that a Kansas probate decree is not controlling in Missouri. A Kansas probate judge cannot make a finding that the four children of the decedent are now the legal owners of real estate located in Missouri. The Recorder of Deeds could not and would not accept the decree of descent for recording.
My client contacted me to discuss these issues and confirmed with the Recorder’s office the information I provided her, that the Kansas probate court did not have jurisdiction over the real estate located in Missouri.
Further, I determined that repeating the process in Hickory County by filing a Missouri petition for determination of heirship would not be necessary because the value of the undeveloped lots was well under the $40,000 threshold for filing a Missouri Small Estate Affidavit. By filing small estate affidavits in Missouri, we were able to substantially save money by reducing the amount of court costs and legal fees.
In Kansas, the probate code does not allow one to execute a small estate affidavit if there is real estate involved in the estate. However, in Missouri, the law does allow for filing small estate affidavits for estates that include real estate if the total value of the estate is $40,000 or less.
Therefore, we proceeded to prepare and file 3 small estate affidavits in the Hickory County Probate Court, a small estate affidavit for the decedent who owned the undeveloped lots, a small estate affidavit for the deceased son of the decedent, and a small estate affidavit for the deceased daughter of the decedent.
In short order, the Probate Court Clerk issued certificates giving legal standing to the affidavits and we recorded them with the Recorder of Deeds office. Once the 3 small estate affidavits were recorded, the legally recognized, title owners of the property were the 2 living sons of the decedent and the 2 spouses of the deceased children of the decedent.
One of the first determinations that must be made before filing documents to open up a decedent’s estate is what is the appropriate jurisdiction to address the needs of the heirs of the decedent. There are times when it is necessary to file a probate estate in the county and state where the decedent resided at the time of death and also file an ancillary proceeding in another state if there are assets located outside the decedent’s resident state.
