Inheritance advance
If you are an heir to an estate, it is possible to receive an advance upon the inheritance you expect to (eventually) receive. The person receiving the inheritance advance generally has to be of legal age and the legal heir of an estate that will be distributed within a set time frame (depending upon the policies of the company providing the advance). A good credit history, employment history, and similar factors generally have no bearing at all on the process, because an inheritance advance is not a loan.
Rather, it is money paid to the heir up-front, before probate has settled the estate. For this service, the company providing the advance generally charges a processing fee. The amount of the fee is determined by a number of factors, such as the complexity of the settlement process, whether or not real estate is involved (because disposition of real estate is more complicated), how long the process is expected to take (because the longer the company has to wait to get their money back, the more it costs them).
Because it is not a loan, you should not generally expect to pay interest, per se, nor to have to make monthly payments. Instead, the company is repaid the advance plus their fee when the estate is settled an you receive your inheritance.
Factors that enter into the equation later and are unknown to the applicant, such as those that delay distribution of the estate, or claims that can reduce the inheritance amount, do not generally change the repayment amount. However, every such possibility should be discussed, because if there is potential fraud on the part of the applicant (such as withholding information regarding an expected claim), the applicant could be liable in that case.
Inheritance advances can be especially helpful and appropriate in cases where the estate must have ongoing amounts of money invested in it in order to keep it running, or in cases where the heir does not have the money necessary to pay probate costs. It is possible to advance only a portion of the inheritance in order to receive needed funds, while retaining full value on the remainder of the expected inheritance.
Entry Filed under: Inheritance, General