Funston, GA Estate Planning Law Firms & Lawyers

This is somewhat too complicated to answer on a website. It's not clear what you mean when you say mother was instructed to "sign over" her part of the estate, but there are ways that could be done. Your father's estate passes as set forth in his will.

It all depends on whether the deed is a tenants in common deed or a joint tenants with rights of survivorship deed. If it is a joint tenants with rights of survivorship, you need to do nothing.  If it is any other kind of deed, some action in probate court will be required.  It might be as simple as a Petition for Year's Support or a Petition to Appoint Permanent Administrator.

If you are named as the POD beneficiary on your father's bank account, that account became yours at his death and did not become part of his estate. It's not even your responsibility to use it to pay estate related expenses or expenses related to his death: it's your money, not his. His probate estate assets are supposed to be used to pay for expenses relating to his death, his debts, and similar items. If your father was receiving nursing home Medicaid benefits before his death, there may be some ability for the state to come after the funds from the POD account, under an estate recovery program, because in Georgia the concept of estate recovery is being applied to assets other than strictly probate estate assets. And if he had income tax or other tax liens, then you may have some potential liability to turn over the assets to the tax department. But in general, as stated above, assets from a POD account which came to you under the POD designation are yours, and are not subject to paying estate debts or expenses.