Source: https://www.georgiayearssupport.com/practitioners-guide.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 03:52:15+00:00

Document:
The following is intended as a guide to attorneys practicing in year's support law.
For those not legally trained, this overview is no replacement for sound legal counsel. Nevertheless, lay petitioners for year's support may be able to use its suggestions.
The non-attorney reader is to take the below with these warnings in mind. The article neither constitutes legal advice nor any guarantee of success in any of the subject matter below.
The Georgia Petition for Year’s Support allows the surviving spouse or minor child of a decedent to receive property from the estate as a matter of right and before payment of most debts. Because of this right, Georgians cannot totally disinherit spouses or minor children.
Use of year’s support is often advisable in small, uncomplicated estates where there is no will. In certain circumstances, it can also be used strategically in insolvent estates or as an end-run around the administration process to completely distribute estate property. This paper both discusses generic use of year’s support and also highlights what we will term “abuse” of the right. Though not abuse at all in the legal or ethical sense, the techniques estate attorneys employ with respect to year’s support often seem so far from what the statutory scheme intends, they may seem to torture or “abuse” its original intent. Finally, this paper discusses how attorneys may “refuse” year’s support to the surviving spouse and minor children when drafting estate plans in order to add clarity and certainty to estates and to avoid costly litigation.
2. History of year’s support .
1850, year’s support applied only to a surviving widow. As our nation’s supreme court came to take a more expansive reading of the Equal Protection Clause to the Fourteenth Amendment, the Georgia Code was changed such that surviving husbands were likewise allowed the right to year’s support.
3. Using the petition for year's support.
3.1. Establishing the status of the petitioner.
years. Moreover, common-law marriages count, which in Georgia must have been entered into prior to January 1, 1997. However, the remarriage or subsequent death of the surviving spouse will bar a claim to year’s support,  making the claim different in nature from an inheritance, which of course survives the heir’s own death.
3.1.2. Minor children. Like spouses, children under age 18 claim year’s support by virtue of their status, but such claims are barred by (1) marriage, (2) death, or (3) attaining age 18 prior to the time the petition is filed. Adopted children qualify, and there is precedent for the notion that a “virtually adopted” child may receive a set aside in year’s support. When both parents of the minor child are deceased, a guardian may petition on the minor child’s behalf.
3.2.1. Priority of debts. An order for year’s support has priority over all debts of the estate save purchase money mortgages on real or personal property and certain crop liens.  The clear implication of the statute is that non-purchase-money mortgages, such as second mortgages on homes, are inferior to an award of year’s support. Indeed, year’s support is given first priority elsewhere in the probate code, ahead of other necessary expenses of administration and taxes owed to the federal government.
Frequently, a petitioner for year’s support will petition to receive from the estate “all of the Decedent’s interest in” real property, making no mention of a deed to secure debt. Alternately, the petition may pray to receive the real property outright. This practice is not improper, though prudence dictates that notice of the petition should be sent to the lender. The probate court cannot set aside as year’s support more than the decedent owned, and the legal title in the lender’s name (i.e., what is commonly thought of as the “mortgage”) remains intact.  Banks, as a rule, do not object to year’s support petitions for this reason; their right to foreclose is still ensured. Banks may, however, be entitled to exercise a right to accelerate a note secured by real property upon the debt of the note’s maker.
3.3.1. Service, generally. The statute requires service of notice either upon the personal representative of the estate, if one there be, and if not then upon all interested persons.  In represented estates, only the personal representative need be served because of his or her fiduciary duty to protect the interests of other heirs and/or creditors. In unrepresented estates, a party with an “interest” is any party who would otherwise have a claim against the estate, including an intestate heir, a beneficiary under the will (whether or not probated), and any creditor of the estate.  The petitioner effects service first by stating the names and addresses of parties to be served in Exhibit “B,” attached to Uniform Probate Court Form 10. Then, the probate court is required to mail the notice to the listed persons.  In practice, it is advisable to prepare for the probate court’s use addressed, stamped envelopes and present them together with the petition at the time of filing.
3.4.3. Personal property. A petition for year’s support is, at best, a blunt instrument for dealing with personal property. As between family members, at least one of whom has actual possession of the personal property, the award is generally easy to apply in order to get the property in the petitioner’s hands. When, furthermore, there is a personal representative of an estate, the representative is directly responsible as a matter of fiduciary duty to distribute property set apart. Difficulty arises, however, when personal property such as cash in the hands of third parties, depository accounts, brokered accounts, or private and government securities are awarded. Out-of-state financial institutions are inexperienced and bureaucratic in dealing with awards of year’s support, government bodies are worse, and even Georgia banks and brokerages seldom distribute funds without at least sending the petitioner through in-house counsel. Furthermore, owing to privacy concerns, even finding out how much the decedent had on deposit with an institution is difficult when the institution has no court-appointed representative with whom to deal. Again, the presence of an executor or administrator greatly eases matters. If, despite all this, the petitioner desires to move forward using year’s support to obtain personal property in the hands of third parties, it is advisable to state the exact nature of the property awarded in as much detail as possible in schedule “A” to Probate Court Form 10. Stating merely “all personal property of the decedent, of any kind or nature and wherever situate,” or words to that effect can make dealings with third parties even more difficult.
3.5. Litigation of the support amount.
3.5.2. Proving the needed support amount.
3.5.2.3. The solvency of the estate. The task of proving in court income available to and expenses incurred by the petitioner is fairly straight-forward, if tedious. By contrast, case law gives scant guidance as to what is meant by the “solvency” of the estate and how that question plays a role in determination of the support amount. In Driskell v. Crisler, the Court of Appeals noted with approval the fact that the trial court took solvency into account and approved an award that amounted to about a third of a $587,000 estate.  The lesson from this case may be that a lower court decision is subject to being overturned where solvency is not considered at all. By contrast, in Allgood v. Allgood and several other cases, our appellate courts initially make mention of the need to consider solvency and proceed to leave the issue relatively unaddressed in the opinion that follows.  At best, we can derive from the statute the legislature’s preference that estates not be left insolvent after the granting of a year’s support award.
3.5.3. Contesting the needed support amount. The caveator to the year’s support petition enjoys the position of making the petitioner prove his or her case. Apart from this, the caveator is often best served by showing on cross-examination the various forms of income presently available to the petitioner. Proceeds from life insurance policies, though not part of the decedent’s estate, are certainly relevant, as are any assets of the petitioner.  The caveator may wish to explore whether any idle property, such as real estate, can be liquidated or is capable of producing income, since the relevant inquiry is the support available to the petitioner. Finally, both petitioner and caveator should make what use can be made of O.C.G.A. § 53-3-7(c)(3), which states that the court should consider “[s]uch other relevant criteria as the court deems equitable and proper.” Case law is scant on the point, but this provision may be an open door for discussion of issues not properly considered elsewhere, such as the decedent’s relationship and affections for the petitioner, or lack thereof.
1 But see infra, section 5.2.
2 O.C.G.A. § 53-3-1; Gentry v. Black, 256 Ga. 569, 570 (1987).
3 Cole v. Elfe, 23 Ga. 235, 236-37 (1857) (“These statutes are abiding memorials of the wisdom and humanity of the Legislature. We know of no condition in life more pitiable than to turn into the streets, . . . the widow and offspring of one, upon whom they have relied for their daily bread[.] . . . To fritter away these Acts, we should be faithless to our high vocation”).
4 Gross v. Shankle, 97 Ga. App. 631, 634 (1958).
6 Hunnicutt v. Hunnicutt, 180 Ga. App. 798, 798 (1986).
7 Cole v. Elfe, 23 Ga. 235, 235 (1857); De Jarnette v. De Jarnette, 176 Ga. 204 (1933).
9 Gentry v. Black, 178 Ga. App. 284, 286 (1986) (rev'd on other grounds, 256 Ga. 569 (1987)).
10 Taylor v. Taylor, 288 Ga. App. 334, 336 (2007).
11 Gentry v. Black, 256 Ga. 569, 570 (1987).
12 Knowles v. Knowles, 125 Ga. App. 642, 648 (1972).
13 See In re Estate of LeGrand, 259 Ga. App. 67 (2002); O.C.G.A. § 19-3-1.1.
petition is filed but before the award of year’s support would not invalidate the award.
16 Thornton v. Anderson, 207 Ga. 714, 717 (1951).
17 Pierce v. Harrison, 199 Ga. 197, 201 (1945); For a discussion of “virtual adoption,” see Chambers v. Chambers, 260 Ga. 610, 611 (1990) (“To establish a cause of action for virtual or equitable adoption in Georgia, one must make “some showing of an agreement between the natural and adoptive parents, performance by the natural parents . . . in giving up custody, performance by the child by living in the home of the adoptive parents, partial performance by the foster parents in taking the child into the home and treating [it] as their child, and . . . the intestacy of the foster parent”).
20 O.C.G.A. § 53-3-1(b); O.C.G.A. §§ 53-3-16 – 53-3-18.
22 Standard v. Miles, 131 Ga. App. 300 (1974); Herring v. Fain, 81 Ga. App. 107 (1950).
24 Scott v. Grant, 227 Ga. App. 1, 3 (1997) (Year’s support award voidable by creditor not receiving proper notice).
25 Allan v. Allan, 236 Ga. 199, 207 (1976).
27 See O.C.G.A. § 53-3-6(c)(1).
30 Id. Using this option to the petitioner’s advantage is discussed in Section 4.3, infra.
36 See, e.g., Ringer v. Lockhart, 237 Ga. 166, 166 (1976) (Son's complaint alleging that confidential relationship existed between stepmother and son, and that award was obtained by fraud on part of stepmother, stated cause of action and precluded judgment on pleadings). The practitioner is entitled to wonder why the year’s support statute is not simply amended to require service upon all interested parties even when there is a personal representative of the estate. The present scheme arguably exposes unwitting, lay executors and inexperienced attorneys to claims for fraud when a simple statutory amendment would head off the issue.
39 Ga. R Prob. Ct. Std. Form 10.
41 See O.C.G.A. § 53-3-11(c).
44 O.C.G.A. § 53-3-19. See also O.C.G.A. § 53-3-20 for the procedure for obtaining such approval. Naturally, no approval is required if the children should reach the age of majority and join in the conveyance.
45 289 Ga. 233 (2011). Among other things, the Court in Cabrel noted that property mutually set aside for the spouse and children is not subject to an action for partition by the children (Id. at 234-35) and that the surviving spouse was not liable to the children for reasonable rent of the property after they marry or attain the age of majority.
47 O.C.G.A. § 53-3-14. Neither statute nor case law addresses the possibility that a petitioner for year’s support may ask for the inchoate right of the option holder or the promisee of the contract in the petition. Such rights, if they are anything, are interests in the estate of the decedent, and presuming proper notice were given, they could themselves be set aside as year’s support.
50 See section 4.2., infra.
51 O.C.G.A. § 53-3-7(c); Holland v. Holland, 267 Ga. App. 251, 255 (2004).
53 Anderson v. Westmoreland, 286 Ga. App. 561, 562 (2007).
54 Gentry v. Black, 256 Ga. 569, 570 (1987).
55 The year following the death is the relevant year and not the year following the filing of the petition or there hearing thereupon. See generally Holland v. Holland, 267 Ga. App. 251 (2004); Anderson v. Westmoreland, 286 Ga. App. 561, 563 (2007).
57 O.C.G.A. § 53-3-7(c); Holland v. Holland, 267 Ga. App. 251, 255 (2004).
58 237 Ga. App. 408, 413 (1999).
59 263 Ga. App. 177 (2003); See also Richards v. Wadsworth 230 Ga. App. 421 (1998); Taylor v. Taylor, 288 Ga. App. 334 (2007).
60 See supra, note 51.

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