Darren Findling of The Probate Pro discusses a recent ruling of the Michigan Court of Appeals in which the court addressed whether a personal representative is unsuitable to serve.
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What makes someone suitable to serve as the personal representative when somebody has died. Hi, I'm Darren Findling of The Probate Pro and the Michigan Court of Appeals in an unpublished opinion just ruled on this very issue the estate of Marjorie Shea Johnson is the name of the matter that went to the court of appeals on a ruling from the probate court in which the probate determined that the nominated personal representative in the will was unsuitable to serve the problem with this was that the court was struggling because the statute doesn't define how somebody is suitable or unsuitable to serve and in this particular case the person nominated to be the personal representative did all sorts of bad things before they were asking to be appointed they didn't understand the difference between a probate estate and a trust Administration they were hiding the existence of the will they weren't being forthright and the person nominated had a really bad uh fiscal history fiscal mismanagement so the Court ruled that the same standard and process that you'd use to ask the court to remove a personal representative could be used in requesting that somebody is unsuitable to serve and the court ultimately ruled that that particular person was not suitable to service personal representative and then the court looked to the next nominated person they reviewed the statute MCL 700. 3611 subsection 1 in that statute it says an interested person may petition for removal of a personal representative for cause at any time the statute enumerates multiple grounds on which a personal representative can be removed including the personal representative quote intentionally misrepresented facts or material facts in a proceeding leading to the appointment so again the court is using the removal provision to define whether somebody is suitable to serve at the initial appointment the court went on to say while epic allows an interested party to object to the initial appointment of a personal representative MCL 700. 2302 subsection 2 it does not define the grounds that would support such an objection nor does EPIC define the term unsuitable epic is the Estates and protected individual code it's the body of statutes that uh are the probate and Trust related uh issues so again here the Probate Court found that the respondent sufficiently carried the burden of establishing that appointment of the personal representative would not be in the best interest of the estate so they used the best interest standard and the court did uh found that it was not an abuse of discretion by the lower court in this determination this is an interesting case because as people present Wills to the court sometimes the person that is nominated as personal representative is not a good person should not be serving will not serve the best interests of the estate maybe they've got a sketchy history maybe a recent bankruptcy or criminal conviction maybe they're fighting and acting in such an offensive behavior that they're not going to do a good job as personal representative this case gives support to the fact that just because they're nominated and they have the highest order of priority doesn't mean you just have to sit back and accept it you can litigate that issue if you've got questions about probate related issues visit us at TheProbatePro.com or call us at 833 PROBATE.
2 окт 2024
