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Who are the Distributees?

July 29, 2011

Attempting to determine the rightful intestate distributees of decedents in kinship hearings can be interesting. To illustrate, in the most general way, how the process works in Surrogate’s Court, let us take the simple case of Joe, an MTA switchman who never executed a Will, never married, and died at the age of 90, having lived in a modest apartment in Flushing, New York for the last 70 years (except for the years 1944 through 1949 when he served in the armed forces). There is no sign that Joe has any family. What happens to Joe’s $75,000 condominium and $2 million in cash and marketable securities?  

Joe’s assets will be administered by the Public Administrator – the Public Administrator will marshal Joe’s assets, pay all debts and administration expenses, and after due diligence, will render an accounting to whatever potential heirs the Public Administrator is able to locate through due diligence and the Attorney General of the State of New York. To get a bit of an idea as to what the Public Administrator does, check out these websites, http://queenscountypa.com/ http://www.nyc.gov/html/kcpa/html/home/home.shtml. (You can also follow the Queens County Public Administrator on twitter if you are interested).

In Joe’s case, the Public Administrator is able to determine through due diligence, e.g., talking to Joe’s neighbors, reviewing Joe’s birth certificate found among Joe’s personal effects, looking at census records, looking at Joe’s draft registration card, and looking at social security records, the identity of Joe’s long deceased mother, and two gentlemen who may be cousins of Joe on his mother’s side (maternal cousins). The Public Administrator is unable to obtain any information about Joe’s father.  The Public Administrator has not found any records showing that Joe was married or had any children. 

Because Joe’s intestate distributees are unknown, the Public Administrator will request that the Surrogate permit the Public Administrator to pay the assets of Joe’s estate to the Commissioner of Finance for the City of New York (Comptroller of the State of New York for Counties outside of New York City) in the absence of a determination of Joe’s intestate distributees. The Public Administrator would cite to the unknown heirs of Joe’s estate by publication, the two potential maternal cousins, and the Attorney General. If no-one appeared in the accounting proceeding, the assets would be deposited with the Commissioner of Finance and would be subject to being recovered by Joe’s heirs that come forward and prove heirship. If potential heirs appear in the accounting proceeding, there will be a kinship hearing in the context of the accounting proceeding. The kinship hearing in that SCPA § 2222 withdrawal proceeding would proceed in the same manner as a kinship hearing in the accounting proceeding. Those persons claiming to be heirs of Joe and seeking to receive Joe’s assets would be required to prove that they and Joe share a common ancestor and that there are no missing or unknown intestate distributees with an equal or superior right to inherit.

Kinship hearings often involve alleged heirs presenting documentary evidence, such as birth certificates, death certificates, social security applications, mortuary records, probate files, obituaries, baptismal certificates, marriage certificates, decrees of divorce, census records and any other publicly available documents that are useful in demonstrating kinship. The presentation of this documentary evidence will also be accompanied by the testimony of witnesses.  In Joe’s case, his birth certificate and his signed social security application indicate that his father is unknown. In Joe’s case, we might also hear from the fellow who lived in the apartment next to Joe, who would testify that he never saw anyone visit Joe, and that he spoke with Joe quite often and that Joe stated that he regretted that he was never married and never had children. The absence of any record of Joe being married or having children (after a thorough search of public records) together with Joe’s neighbor’s testimony, would be highly probative to the issue of whether Joe died with a spouse and issue, as these would be the first people to take in intestacy.  This testimony would be admissible over a hearsay objection based on the pedigree exception to hearsay. There are certain presumptions that a person claiming to be an heir can avail themselves of, such as the presumption that a person is deemed to have predeceased the decedent if he would have been 100 years old at the time of decedent’s death. Another oft employed presumption arises by statute, namely, the three-year presumption under SCPA § 2225. In some cases a professional genealogist will assist counsel in attempting to prove heirship, and even scientific evidence, such as DNA evidence, might come into play in a kinship hearing.  

Kinship proceedings, aside from telling sometimes compelling narratives of peoples’ lives, can be illuminating from a historical perspective. Census records reveal extended families struggling to make it in their new country in ethnic enclaves, and the chaos of World War II and the devastation of the Holocaust can present special challenges to those attempting to prove kinship to a decedent. With vast public records destroyed and the world having been robbed of the memories of millions of people, evidentiary hurdles may abound. In similar fashion, the legacy of slavery and racial discrimination present challenges when attempting to prove kinship to an African-American decedent.