In re Estate of Waterman

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The administrators of Decedent’s estate listed residential real estate for sale. Decedent’s common law spouse objected to the proposed sale, claiming it was her marital home. The district court recognized the surviving spouses’s common law rights but nonetheless approved the sale. The buyers took possession and made improvements to the home. Thereafter, the court of appeals reversed and remanded for consideration of the homestead interest of the spouse. On remand, the district court gave the surviving spouse the option of taking possession of the home upon paying the buyers a substantial part of the cost of their improvements to the home or receiving the proceeds from the estate’s sale of the real estate. The Supreme Court affirmed as modified, holding (1) the surviving spouse could retake possession upon payment of the approximate value of the home before the improvements were made less any credit to which she was entitled from the buyers for rent during the period the spouse had been dispossessed; and (2) the spouse could transfer title to the buyers and receive the proceeds from the estate’s sale of the home plus credit for rent from the date of the conveyance to the buyers until the date of judgment. View "In re Estate of Waterman" on Justia Law