Colorado Laws for Heirs and Mortgages
- Inheritances in Colorado happen in one of two ways: someone creates a last will and testament naming you as an heir or someone related to you dies without a will but the state's laws dictate that you stand to inherit. If a decedent had a valid last will and testament, that document determines who receives the property. If not, the state's laws of intestate succession make that determination. For example, if you die leaving behind a spouse and no parent or child, the spouse receives your entire estate.
- When a person dies, all the property the person owned individually is lumped together into the person's estate. It is this estate that is subject to distribution to heirs. However, the estate can consist of both assets and debts. To determine what the estate consists of and make sure the heirs receive the property to which they are entitled, Colorado's probate laws requires that the court open a probate case and assign a personal administrator to oversee the estate.
- Once the court appoints a personal representative over the estate, sometimes referred to as an executor, the representative must ensure that the estate assets are not neglected. The representative has the authority to use estate funds to pay for estate maintenance, such as continuing to make mortgage payments until she can settle the estate. However, even if the personal representative is an heir, the heir is not responsible for using her own funds to do this, only estate funds.
- When an estate is admitted to probate and a court assigns a personal representative, it is up to the representative to settle the estate debts before distributing any inheritances. So, if a person dies leaving behind a mortgage and other assets, the personal representative may use those assets to pay off the mortgage and then pass on the property to the heirs. However, this may not happen in all probate cases, and the circumstances of each case can differ significantly.
