Beeville, TX Estate Planning Law Firms & Lawyers

If you provide the bank with a certified copy of your letter of office that should be sufficient to gain access to any bank account held in your husband's name. If the bank account was a joint account the account would not be in your husband's estate. It would be owned by the surviving joint tenant. The death certificate would give them authority to turn the account over to the surviving joint tenant. As the executrix you can require the bank to provide you with information on all of his accounts, including the title on all of his accounts.

The general rule is that unless someone else signed for the debt they are not responsible for it. Therefore, if neither his wife or his children agreed to pay the debt or cosigned for it they are not obligated to repay it. However, the people he owed money to will be allowed to go after his probate estate. Depending upon how the insurance benefits were set up they may be able to go after it if your father did not name a beneficiary on those benefits.

This is probably not something he should do, unless there are lots of other facts. If your husband was the only heir of his brother, it would make it a little easier to say yes. Same thing if the brother's Will says everything goes to your husband. If a court approved it. More information is needed.