The decedent’s surviving spouse Deborah had previously filed a probate lawsuit under New Jersey Statute N.J.S.A. 3B:5-15(a), which addresses “premarital wills.” That case was discussed in a previous blogpost.
After that decision, Deborah filed a motion before the Superior Court of New Jersey, Chancery Division, Probate Part, for an order to compel her late husband’s estate to convey to her two assets that had passed under the Will (a Florida condominium and a car) at their date-of-death appraised value, rather than the current fair market value. The date of the decedent’s death was more than two years ago.
The chancery judge denied Deborah’s motion. First, the court noted that there was no pending probate case, because a judgment had been entered resolving all issues in the previous “premarital will” case. Nevertheless, the court addressed Deborah’s request.
The judge noted that Deborah had not provided any legal authority to support her claim that the court should intervene in how an estate’s executor liquidates or distributes estate assets. It concluded that the discretion given to a court of equity does equate to “a roving commission to right all wrongs or to better hone decedent’s estate plan, particularly when the evidence clearly demonstrated that he chose not to do that when living.”
Instead, because the omitted spouse issue had been decided in the prior action, the executor of the estate was “obligated only to marshal the assets, pay the estate’s debts, and distribute the property in accordance with the Will’s directions… Those obligations do not require that the estate sell any of its property to an omitted spouse, let alone at a price based on two-year-old date-of-death valuations.”
Consequently, the motion was denied.
A copy of In re Estate of Reinitz, Jr. can be found here.