Probate Topics: Decedent, Lost at sea/abandoned, Executor, Administrator, Heir, and.... Qualified heir ____________________ Probate is a most interesting concept, and it comes of necessity. When something comes from necessity, it may or may not conform to the current law forum. For instance, probate may incorporate elements of the common law, equity, and even admiralty … or it might not even utilize any of those. When a man comes onto the land and starts to re-arrange what nature has provided … we call that an improvement. Man does that of necessity, as man is perhaps the most fragile of all the creatures on the earth. I suppose a man could be like an animal and just forage or graze off the land if he lived in a tropical paradise. But people have the tendency to spread out for whatever reason. We have people living right along the equator regions all the way up above the Arctic Circle. In those areas where man has to be protected from the elements, then of necessity he must re-arrange what nature has provided, or else he will simply die from exposure. So, people go to building houses, farms, barns, warehouses, subway systems, and the like. In essence, then probate deals with the changes that the man has made to the environment whether it be a house, a farm, or a railroad system. As long as the man is there directing the use of the thing, then there is no need for probate. But if for some reason the man is absent from the thing, then the community has to decide what would be the appropriate use of what has been abandoned. This is the reason for the probate court, to make some equitable decisions as to what should become of the improvements which are abandoned. The reason for the abandonment is immaterial. The fact that property is in existence in a community of people which has a direct effect on the community has to be dealt with. The man may be dead, or may be just absent, or on a journey, or whatever. But the fact remains that the property or improvement has been left behind, so something has to be done about it. Let’s look at one form of abandonment … vacation. If a family decides it wants to go on a vacation that means that it will be abandoning the family home while they travel. What is to be done while they are gone? Well, certainly it would be wise to appoint a caretaker or administrator of the home. Maybe the neighbor would be contacted and asked to administer the estate during the absence of the family. So the neighbor would watch over the property and make sure that the lawn was mowed, the garbage can is put out for collection, and be aware if any intruders should come onto the property. Thus the neighbor would administer the estate until the owner came back and reclaimed his right of possession, etc. But what if something happened to the family on vacation? How long would the neighbor administer the estate? Well, technically they would administer the estate until someone came along and made a claim on the estate. Perhaps while the family was gone, the bank did a foreclosure and made a claim on the property. That would terminate the neighbor as administrator. And so it is with any abandonment. There has to be either a real administrator/executor or there has to be an assumed administrator. Anytime that there is not a man or woman in actual possession and use of property it is abandoned. ____________________ Let’s consider the decedent. You can look up the word in the dictionaries if you care to, but I really want to study the concept as it applies to some areas of concern to us in our present circumstances. As has been pointed out many times, the US Styles Manual says that anything that appears in all upper case letters is either a vessel, corporation, or a dead person. So, if you see what appears to be your name in all capital letters, then what is being described is not you as a living being, but is referring to you as a decedent. So again, the community has to decide what to do with the property of the decedent who has abandoned the property. A baby is born, and a birth certificate is created which describes the newborn in all upper case letters. Oops, the birth certificate is all about a decedent, not a living being. Look in the mirror. When a baby leaves the womb, it is dying from the moment it takes it first breathe. Death is a constant…at least in this world. So the newborn is a decedent immediately and hence the baby has to be probated as abandoned property. And since there is no will in place, the baby is basically escheated to the state. So, we have an abandoned baby which the state is making a claim upon based on the salvage law, and correctly they create a bond with which to guarantee their claim. The birth certificate is the bond to do this … and a certified BC comes on bond paper. So, we have a correct demonstration of making a claim on abandoned property which is under salvage rights. ____________________ Lost at sea (see) or lost beyond the sea meaning on the isles of the sea Centuries ago as people started to sail across the oceans in search of commerce, if they didn’t return within a certain expected time, they were considered ‘lost at sea’ and so probate law would kick in. Even if someone’s intended destination was America or the isles of the west, when they left for the new world and there was evidence that they were actually living in North America, meaning that they were living on the isles of the sea, they were still considered to be abandoned and so property left behind had to be dealt with. In a strange quirt of logic, someone who was not a Catholic was considered lost beyond the (Holy) See, and so the Vatican considered it necessary to escheat their property. ______________________ Heir and qualified heir An heir to an estate is much like a beneficiary in a trust. Under probate an heir may be awarded possession of estate property upon the testament of the decedent or what we call the will. And certainly under probate there are certain tax exemptions in place for that purpose. We are all pretty much understanding the position of heir. What is not generally understood is the term ‘qualified heir’. Some years ago as Roger and Jean were doing some investigation into this situation they came upon a device being used by judges and attorneys whereby they were justified in taking property from ‘decedents’ … meaning the STRAW MAN. What they had done was to research the township they were living in and found that the whole township had been listed on the tax roles as a ‘cemetery’. And who do we find in a cemetery? Well we find dead people. And then they got to looking at just how the judges were raiding the estates of all of these decedents. They were doing it under the status as “qualified heirs”. The judges and attorneys were actually stealing the assets of the alleged decedents under a pretext as qualified heirs. But what they found out was that these grave robbers were not filing the tax return on the theft. So, they were reminded of Al Capone and his problems with the IRS for not claiming and paying taxes on Al’s bootlegging, etc. So, what was done was that the simply reported the crime to the IRS by utilizing the IRS 706 and 709 forms to put a stop to the grave robbing that was going on in the court house.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 07:13:45 +0000
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