Ask 2 Lawyers: My mom passed away without a will. Can my sister can live in my mom’s home rent free?

My mom passed away without a will and my sister is living in her home rent-free what can I do so we get this question a lot where somebody passes away and one sibling starts using the estate assets and maybe living in the home rent-free maybe they are living in the home when mom died they continue to live there rent-free what is it that can be done when you have somebody taking these actions your best choice is to follow your own petition for probate and intestate petition for probate as there's no will and then hopefully you can be appointed and you can get custody of the house and get a court order to get your sister out and put the house up for sale presumably sell it you may want to get into the issue with the court about whether sister needs to owe some rent back for the house otherwise you sell the house just put the proceeds and everybody moves on and so whether it's a will or a trust let's say the house is in a trust can sister live in that house rent-free if the trust is supposed to be split equally among several children the general answer is no you look to the trust terms most trusts do not say that somebody can live there for certain amount of time although there's some trust officers that do say that but most say no so no sister here if she's refusing to move out and she's the name trustee you're still going to petition the court and you're gonna ask the quartet to basically keep her from being trustee nominate you or someone else and then they're gonna come in get her out of the house sell it maybe have a surcharge for the rent that she's used and then the distribution will be split everybody will move on with their lives albertson and Davidson is here to help you fight for your inheritance check out all day long for our complete library of helpful legal videos and articles from your favorite California trusts and we'll litigation law firm Albertson and Davidson LLP.