Richmond, CA · Member since 2018 · 17 posts · 4 votes
Hi All,
My neighbor is 97, suffers from dementia and has no heirs. Her house is paid off and likely needs a significant amount of work to make it market worthy.
She was just moved into a rest home (a solution she wanted since she is lonely and knew she was losing the thread).
My question is: what will happen to the house? As her closest neighbor, I'm not wild about the prospect of it sitting empty for years, reverting to the city in probate and..then what?
I don't mean to be predatory but is there a way I might buy it to avoid all that?
Estate planning lawyer, maybe? Good chance someone would emerge to challenge her mental state if you bought it. I would think she has a will of some sort and theres someone listed in it, even if its a friend.
well, honestly, and I dont mean to be rude, but its none of your business and no one will tell you anything unless you are named as her trustee.....so you will need to wait and see what happens. At this point, if she has dementia she would not be able to sell the house in any case......
@MaryMitchell, no offense taken. That's exactly what I was wondering. The police came by this morning (they were the ones it fell to to try and place her in a home) and asked us to look after the place since it's vacant. I was just wondering if there is anything we can do to limit the prospect of it sitting vacant for years (there is a problem in neighborhoods nearby of people breaking into vacant properties and using them to do drugs, etc...) Sounds like no, we just have to wait and keep an eye on things.
@AdamGollatz she told me years ago that she doesn't have a will and asked me to give her the name of a lawyer. I did but she didn't follow up and her mental state declined after that. But there is a significant chance she DID have a will at some point and just forgot. She was forgetting so much as she got into her 90s.