Brigantine, NJ Estate Planning Law Firms & Lawyers

It depends on the purpose of the trust.  Any kind of asset protection requires and irrevocable trust.  But be careful, irrevocable means irrevocable, and if you change your mind, or the circumstances change, too bad.  An irrevocable trust is like a third person, it has its own social security number, pays taxes, and has a list of people who control it.  A trust is simply the list of instructions used to determine how and when the assets in the trust can be used.  The trust can hold all of the items you listed, the deed to a house, and two bank accounts.  The trust can also be the recipient of funds from a will, but does not include the will.  

Does your brother own property or have bank accounts in the USA?  And no one, not his spouse or anyone else, is a joint owner, or otherwise has any legally rights to those accounts?  If that is the case, in order to become the administrator, everyone else who has a right to serve as administrator has to renounce their right to serve.  Then you take the renunciations and file it with the county surrogate along with the application to become the adminstrator.  this would all take place in the county in which your brother lived.  

If the money in the account is in your name, then it is not part of the estate.  Ther eis something called an "account of convenience" where someone adds a name to an account to make it more convenient to write checks.  However, if the account is solely in your name, I don't see how your mother can make a claim to it.