Last will and testament

Best to use a PR attorney if u r a PR resident!  PR Commonwealth laws are very different and vary with the states!

To my knowledge, a mainland will is not binding in the island, the laws are different than in the states. Talk to a PR lawyer or your will may never take effect.

I don't remember exactly, but there is a law that basically states that after your death, your spouse gets a certain percentage and you kids gets a percentage and apparently you can not work around that. That is why I suggest talking to a lawyer especially one that deals with Federal and PR taxes.

ReyP wrote:

I don't remember exactly, but there is a law that basically states that after your death, your spouse gets a certain percentage and you kids gets a percentage and apparently you can not work around that. That is why I suggest talking to a lawyer especially one that deals with Federal and PR taxes.

If there is no will, your spouse will inherit 50% of your state and the kids will get the other 50%. Under PR law you have to leave some % to your kids on your will. Unlike in some states, in PR you must be legally married if not your kids will inherit all. Also, any join bank accounts in the island will be frozen until the will situation is resolve, this happened to my dad when his wife pass away.

Since we own property in PR and in the mainland, we have a will made for each situation.

Hello poor boy,

Quite separate and apart from whether or not a holographic (handwritten) Will is even legal in Puerto Rico is the very specific way in which it must be executed. Very few people who draw up their own Will pay attention to the way in which they excecute the Will, and thus it becomes invalid completely.

If you have property in PR and other assets in the continental USA, and you're leaving it to children who may not themselves be residents of PR then you really should consult a lawyer. Wills are relatively inexpensive documents to make up and a lawyer will make sure that it is properly registered, which also makes a great difference when it comes to probate.

See a local lawyer who is experienced in Wills, succession and inheritance, it's worth every penny.

Cheers,
James     Expat-blog Experts Team

All of the answers are correct. I am a federal attorney here, I can't (and never would) practice law in the state bar. Get a lawyer, they're very cheap here. In the areas of Santurce and Calle Loiza, we have dozens of English speaking state barred attorneys who would do it easily for a couple or three hundred. You are talking about your kids, all of your worldly assets;   save ur family the pain and pay the friggin couple hundred.

We have been here for 1 1/2 years and do not own property yet. do these laws here also apply to adult children? As far as other holdings, bank accounts, etc. ? I had heard from a person at a Coop here that the account would be frozen if it is a joint account until everything is settled. How long does a will take to be probated here?

We have made up our own will years ago and have edited it when there has been a birth of another grandchild. Is that valid here or do ew have to start from scratch with a lawyer?

Any information is appreciated.

Thanks,

Tonie

Can you suggest any in the Luquillo area thank you

tonie064 wrote:

We have been here for 1 1/2 years and do not own property yet. do these laws here also apply to adult children? As far as other holdings, bank accounts, etc. ? I had heard from a person at a Coop here that the account would be frozen if it is a joint account until everything is settled. How long does a will take to be probated here?

We have made up our own will years ago and have edited it when there has been a birth of another grandchild. Is that valid here or do ew have to start from scratch with a lawyer?

Any information is appreciated.

Thanks,

Tonie

Tonie,

I will give you our family experience, when my grandparents died, they did not had a will. All theirs 8 kids had 1/8 ownership on all their properties. If my dad and uncles wanted to sell the property, all will have to sign and agree to the sale. Since then, 2 of my uncles had pass away and their kids inhered their 1/8s ownerships. So now if anyone wants to sell, not only the remaining 6 uncles will have to sign and agree, but the other 2 uncles 8 kids will have to sign and agree as well. As of right now the houses sits deserted in a legal limbo since the family cannot make their mind. My wife's family is going thru the same with her grandmas property.

adlin20 wrote:

tonie064 wrote:

We have been here for 1 1/2 years and do not own property yet. do these laws here also apply to adult children? As far as other holdings, bank accounts, etc. ? I had heard from a person at a Coop here that the account would be frozen if it is a joint account until everything is settled. How long does a will take to be probated here?

We have made up our own will years ago and have edited it when there has been a birth of another grandchild. Is that valid here or do ew have to start from scratch with a lawyer?

Any information is appreciated.

Thanks,

Tonie

Tonie,

I will give you our family experience, when my grandparents died, they did not had a will. All theirs 8 kids had 1/8 ownership on all their properties. If my dad and uncles wanted to sell the property, all will have to sign and agree to the sale. Since then, 2 of my uncles had pass away and their kids inhered their 1/8s ownerships. So now if anyone wants to sell, not only the remaining 6 uncles will have to sign and agree, but the other 2 uncles 8 kids will have to sign and agree as well. As of right now the houses sits deserted in a legal limbo since the family cannot make their mind. My wife's family is going thru the same with her grandmas property.

And things get really complex if some of them move away and nobody knows how to reach them. It sits in limbo, rots and grows a jungle of grass and trees.

Rey,

That is one of the issues our family is having, some of my cousins had move to the mainland and we cannot contact them. Even one of my uncles is "missing in action", we gave up and let the property go to waste, a shame since the land sits on a beautiful hill overlooking the valley.

We spend our time about half / half between PR and the Mainland.  Our lawyer had us put our PR house and property into a US LLC company jointly owned by my wife and I.  If either of us die,  the property stays in the company and is not subject to the complex and difficult PR estate laws.  As long as we do not become PR residents, when the last of us go,  the company passes to our kids with the property without getting split up by PR law.

The LLC was a good idea the only thing is taxes for rhe corporation in the US. I assume you looked into that or the LLC existed already for some other purpose.

For the most part, the LLC is tax neutral. Income and or deductions pass through to my Federal Income taxes.  It did exist for another purpose, mostly liability protection, but setting one up can be done in a day or two and a few hundred bucks.   Liability protection on its own is a good reason to put your home in a corporate entity.

I am reading on the subject and what I have discovered is that PR along with very few countries with Spanish Code traditions, make it hard if not impossible to "disown" certain relatives, like siblings [even though you cannot pick them] and may not be speaking to them.  I read about offshore trusts [Isle of Mann] that might be a means to avoid this but I cannot give either legal advice nor speak with authority on the details. But look now that you have a place to start.

Another option to consider for tax / estate / inheritance issues is to establish a family trust into which all or most real property and bank accounts, equities, 401k, holdings, etc placed.   you and spouse hold trustee status to the trust.

consult your lawyer

labochinchosa wrote:

All of the answers are correct. I am a federal attorney here, I can't (and never would) practice law in the state bar. Get a lawyer, they're very cheap here. In the areas of Santurce and Calle Loiza, we have dozens of English speaking state barred attorneys who would do it easily for a couple or three hundred. You are talking about your kids, all of your worldly assets;   save ur family the pain and pay the friggin couple hundred.

Typical of this blog, a surprising amount of good info, some right on. But Legal Zoon can be legal doom. What you are trying to accomplish is easy whether you do it via PR probate law or mainland.  You can do it a number of ways. Me, I'd do it so that so the venue for any dispute or distribution issues would be in a mainland court leaving only the ministerial actions to the PR court.  I am not a probate lawyer, but I know the basics.

With my dear mother,  I finally convinced her to put everything in a trust with the four of us as beneficiaries and the moment she passed, it became ours, no probate court, no nothing. But I reiterate, a lot of ways to skin the cat.

But I think labochinchosa's advice is very sound. I would only add also talk to a mainland PROBATE specific attorney.

We haven't done a will yet but I think we should.
The only thing that we want to organize is when one of us dies the surviving partner will get the complete inheritance until he/she dies.
What happens after that is none of our concern.

If you don't organize this things can get ugly when the first spouse dies and one of the kids insists to get his/her part. I've seen a case like that here in the neighborhood where a fresh widower was forced to sell his house by a son who moved to the states 30 years ago and who never came back or was in touch.

yes, pre planing in the area of family matters is really important, the horror stories I have herd from friends and acquaintances are really bad.

You avoid tons of headache and expense, plus you  call the shots on all maters of property distribution.

My father passed a few weeks back. He lived in Puerto Rico. I live in the states. My father had married again and had 2 other children besides us 3. He always told me he had life insurance for us. I was just contacted by his other daughter who lives in Puerto Rico that they need my birth certificate. How can I find out who my fathers attorney is. Im not giving my birth certificate to someone other than and attorney. I know my father owned 4 houses and land there.i just need direction as to how I can figure this out and if I was left anything?

Inheritance laws in PR are not like the states.  If he dies without a will I understand it can be difficult to get the estate settled. Also there is no community property. For example, if the house was just in his name and not also his others wife's, the property I believe, goes to your family and not her.

Do some googling and get an attorney. You should be able to find one in San Juan who will cover the island.

The birth certificate is needed so they certify you are indeed his son.  Like William said the inheritance laws in PR are not like here.  I went through that ordeal a few years ago.  They need to do a Declaratoria de Herederos.  So that all his properties can be distributed among his heirs and spouse. 

If you don't feel comfortable giving your BC to your sister, you might be able to send it directly to the attorney who is handling the case.