Heir Rights (VI)
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As an heir, you likely have questions about the inheritance process in VI, and your rights.
Overall, if you are entitled to receive an inheritance, you have the right to expect to receive that inheritance ... eventually. While some states attempt to put deadlines on estate settlements, an average estate takes 16 months to settle, and some take years (see Inheritance Timing).
Rights Under VI Probate
Most estates are settled by an executor appointed by the court (often a family member), under a court-supervised process known as probate. The executor has significant discretionary power, but he or she has a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the estate, to follow the law, and to distribute estate proceeds to the rightful heirs.
However, VI estates must satisfy obligations according to priority (for example, debts take precedence over distributions), so in some cases your inheritance will be less than expected, or even be completely consumed by other estate priorities (which must generally affect all potential heirs proportionately). See Estate Expenses, Fees, and Taxes for more information, and note that for your protection, estate executors must document all estate transactions and make these records available to the courts ... and in some states, must proactively deliver these records in a Final Accounting to the heirs as well.
Your rights as an heir include:
- Notice: Many states have laws that require an estate executor to notify you of the death and the estate proceeding if you are mentioned in the will, if there is no will and you are entitled to inherit by intestate succession, or even if there is a will that doesn't mention you, but you would have been entitled to inherit by intestate succession (i.e., you are an "heir-at-law").
- Estate Information: Many states require the executor to provide you a copy of the estate inventory, as well as a Final Accounting (what happened to the inventory, what estate expenses were incurred, etc.). If the estate is undergoing probate, and the state does not require that the executor directly supply you the information, you can simply make a public records request for the reports filed with the court.
- VI Family Entitlements: If you are a surviving spouse or dependent child, you likely have additional rights that go beyond anything mentioned in the will or mandated by the laws of intestate succession. Surviving family members often have the right to remain living in the family home for a certain period of time, to automatically receive certain personal possessions, to receive a living allowance from the estate while it is being settled, and to receive certain minimum amounts (see VI Family Entitlement details for your state).
- Reasonable Timeframe: Unless the asset is one that automatically transfers on death (such as an IRA with a named beneficiary), you can expect the process to take 12-18 months on average, and sometimes considerably longer (see Inheritance Timing). An executor has a duty to settle an estate in a reasonable timeframe, but most states are very lenient about such timeframes, and there are legitimate reasons that some estates take years to settle. On the other hand, some executor simply cannot handle the task, or unreasonably delay, and those can be grounds to ask the court to remove the executor and appoint someone else.
- Court Objections: If the estate undergoes probate (and most do), you have the right to object to the probate court about anything you think is being done incorrectly or improperly. You can object to the appointment of a particular executor, you can object to the validity of a will, you can object to particular distributions (not just your own), you can object to sales of assets, you can object to how long things are taking ... in fact, you can object to almost anything. You just need to make sure you have valid grounds for doing so, and it's important to realize that settling an estate is a difficult task that takes time. See Court to find your particular court.
- Lawsuits: If the probate judge does not respond to your objection as desired, or if there is no probate proceeding, then you can file a civil lawsuit against the estate. Such lawsuits can be expensive, and should be considered only as a last resort.
Additional considerations:
- Expectations: Please keep in mind that although a will may be specific about an intended inheritance, other factors can sometimes intervene to modify or even entirely invalidate the inheritance. See VI Rules of Inheritance for details.
- Inheritance Taxes: Some states have inheritance taxes for which the executor has the responsibility of paying, out of your share, before giving you your remaining inheritance. If your executor is using EstateExec, it will tell him or her if such taxes apply.
- Executor Discretion: Unless the inheritance is a specific bequest, the executor may have some discretion in deciding how to give you your share of an estate. The executor may decide to liquidate assets and give you all cash (and cash equivalents), or the executor may mix and match assets to equal your share. You have to the right to ask for your share to be given in a certain form, but the executor does not have to respect your wishes. For this reason (and others), it is advisable to try to retain a good relationship with the executor (see Working with Executors).
- Inheritance Receipts: When you receive an inheritance, the executor will likely ask you to sign a receipt, which can be required. However, the executor will often ask you, as a condition of receiving the proceeds, to waive any rights you may to decide to sue the estate or the executor in the future. Such waivers are best practice for an executor, but heirs are not required to waive their rights, so the decision is up to you. It may be best to sign anyway, to preserve the relationship and to receive your inheritance in a timely manner, but your ultimate recourse is to either convince the executor to drop the waiver, or object to the court.
VI Small Estate Rights
Most states have laws enabling small estates to be settled without full probate, sometimes without any court involvement at all. In such cases, there may be no formally appointed executor, and the heir can directly collect any inheritance to which he or she is entitled, by providing appropriate documentation to the current asset holders.
In the US Virgin Islands, estates can avoid full probate by settlement without administration (or via summary administration if the estate is worth <$300). Regardless of estate size, probate is not required if an estate contains only assets exempt from probate.
Settlement without Administration
If a US Virgin Islands estate has no debts, or the heirs agree to pay all debts (presumably with estate proceeds), then you can considerably reduce the effort of estate probate via settlement without administration.
Preliminary Steps if There is a Will
Intestate estate can skip directly to Settlement Process below, but if there is a will, you must first:
- Submit to the court a Petition for Probate of Will and for Letters Testamentary (see Rule 3 in Virgin Islands Rules for Probate and Fiduciary Proceedings)
- If the estate contains property requiring an appraisal, submit a request within 14 days after appointment as personal representative for appointment of 2 disinterested and competent appraisers, with affidavits attached from the appraisers indicating that they will honestly and impartially appraise the property exhibited to them according to the best of their knowledge and ability. Upon court approval, provide an estate inventory to the appraisers, who must return their appraisals within 30 days of appointment.
- Submit an estate inventory of assets and debts to the court (consider using an EstateExec Inventory Report)
- Now proceed to Settlement Process below
Settlement Process
Prepare a Petition for Settlement Without Administration that states:
- The name and residence of the deceased
- The date of death (attach a death certificate when available and procurable)
- The names and capacities of the heirs
- That there are no debts, or that the heirs choose to assume and pay any such debts
- That the heirs accept the estate purely, simply and unconditionally, making the petitioners and the property of decedent responsible for any debts that may be owing by the decedent
- The proportion due each heir
The petition shall end with a prayer that the heirs be recognized as the legal heirs of the deceased and be placed in full possession of the decedent's estate, real and personal.
Sign the petition, and have two witnesses sign that they watched you sign the petition.
Attach an inventory of estate assets and debts, stating the fair value of each item at the time of death (consider using an EstateExec Inventory Report), and have the inventory signed by 2 responsible persons.
Once you have prepared the petition:
- Submit the petition to the United States attorney, who will approve the petition in the margin, and certify the amount of inheritance tax to be paid to the Territory
- Publish a Notice to Creditors in a newspaper of general circulation in VI, once a week for 4 weeks
- Submit the Petition for Settlement Without Administration to the court, along with payment for the inheritance tax
- Upon approval, the court will issue a judgment placing title to the identified property in the hands of the identified heirs
- Use this judgment to collect assets from current custodians, then settle the estate in the normal way (pay debts, distribute remaining assets)
Summary Administration
If the estate is worth <$300, you can further simplify the process. Follow all the steps for Settlement without Administration (see above), but:
- You do not need court approval to retain the services of the any required appraisers
- When you publish the Notice to Creditors, you only need to do it for 2 weeks, and that notice should say that creditors have only 30 days to file any claims
- After the 30-day creditor notice period has expired, file an accounting with the court that shows estate administration expenses, and a proposed plan for disbursing estate assets.
- Once the court approves your plan, disburse estate assets accordingly.
See 15 V.I.C. § 167, and Rule 22 in Virgin Islands Rules for Probate and Fiduciary Proceedings.
Estate Settlement Considerations
Before paying any debts or making any distributions, be sure to account for any Family Entitlements in VI, which typically have priority over everything except expenses of the last illness, funeral charges, and any estate administrations expenses.
Even if the estate does not go through probate, you may still be entitled to Executor Compensation in VI, and this compensation also has priority over most estate debts.
Estate debts have priority over most distributions in turn, so before distributing assets you should resolve any estate debts. If the estate makes any distributions beyond amounts set aside for family entitlements, unpaid creditors have the right to sue the recipients for repayment using those excess distributions. Consequently, even if the settlement process does not require you to publish a Notice to Creditors, you may want to follow VI probate rules for finding estate debts, since doing so may limit the time creditors have to pursue repayment.
If estate solvency is uncertain, an executor should consider going through official probate for the increased creditor protection it offers. Alternately, such uncertainty can sometimes persuade creditors to forgive a portion of debts, since they will want to avoid legal expenses as well, and may prefer to get something rather than nothing.
See also Making Distributions.
No Small Estate Affidavit
Many people ask about using a small estate affidavit without any court involvement, but VI does not support such an affidavit. You must use one of the above methods (or full probate) for handling small estates in VI.
Court
In the Virgin Islands, the Probate Division of the Superior Court handles wills and estate matters.
Estate Debts
Finally, note that as an heir, you are NOT responsible for paying the debts of the VI estate out of your own funds. You do NOT inherit responsibility for paying the debts of parents, for example. If the estate is insolvent (i.e., cannot pay all its bills), then creditors simply end up with less than owed, or even nothing ... as do you.
If an estate ends up being insolvent, and you somehow received a distribution anyway (perhaps through a small estate process), some states allow creditors to sue you to reclaim any amounts they are still owed. So you can't inherit a debt outright, but if you receive a distribution that the estate needed to pay its bills, you may be forced to pay out some or all of that distribution.
Additional Information
For more information about inheritances in general, see EstateExec Heir Guide.
In case you're interested, heir rights in other states can be found here:
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