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I live in Louisiana. I have some non-blood/no-real-relation relatives that live in a different part of Louisiana than I currently do.

My step-mom(used to be) still have a close relationship. Last year her father passed away leaving my step-mom and her brother as next of kin to inherit a vehicle from their father. Since then, it's been sitting unused.

I've mentioned wanting to receive the vehicle and she said that she would talk it over with her brother. Well, he recently passed away, leaving my step-mom as the sole living next of kin for her father, and she expressed that she wants me to have the vehicle. I asked her about the state of the title, and she mentioned that she had the title (still in her father's name) and death certificates for him. She is currently not in the best of health to be getting out and about to take care of business like this.

I know the proper way to handle this situation would be for her to properly transfer the title to her name then we could do the title transfer between us. However, being that her health is the way it is and me being several hundreds of miles away I'm trying to come up with the best method of transferring the title that requires the least amount of work for her. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Ryan M
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Raining_Crumbs
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Note that I am not familiar with Louisiana laws or processes so this is some general information based on having to go through probate to inherit an estate in another state and some quick googling.

In order to transfer or sell the car, your stepmother needs to officially inherit it. OMV will want various documents that say that your stepmother is now the owner of the car so it can be titled and registered in her name before she can do anything else with it.

This is also true for any other assets of her father's and brother's. The way to do this in Louisiana is to go through 'succession'. Depending on how big the estate is (assets are worth), whether there are wills or not, whether any heirs are going to argue other the assets or not, and so on.

Assets that have a stated beneficiary like retirement accounts, life insurance, sometime bank accounts are inherited directly and aren't part of the succession.

This link is to an attorney's site but it has a flowchart that shows the various types of succession. Hopefully, it will help you figure out the next steps.

mkennedy
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