My husband passed away but only his name is on rental mortgages

[Tiffany Bishop]

This is probably a unique situation, but I'm hoping someone has experience or knowledge.  My late husband and I own three rental properties.  He passed away unexpectedly about a year and a half ago.  The titles of the three properties are all in the name of our trust, but the mortgages were solely in his name.  I haven't done anything about that for the past year+ for multiple reasons, I've just continued to pay them.  However, I'm thinking it's time to do something about them.  I called the lender and no one that I could get a hold of knew anything or would tell me anything about what my options are.  I was just told to send a lot of different documents via snail mail to their corporate offices.  Does anyone know if I have to refinance them under my name? Will I need to pay them off?  Can I just transfer them to my name?  I really have no idea what this will look like.  

[Shaun Weekes]

Originally posted by @Tiffany Bishop:

This is probably a unique situation, but I'm hoping someone has experience or knowledge.  My late husband and I own three rental properties.  He passed away unexpectedly about a year and a half ago.  The titles of the three properties are all in the name of our trust, but the mortgages were solely in his name.  I haven't done anything about that for the past year+ for multiple reasons, I've just continued to pay them.  However, I'm thinking it's time to do something about them.  I called the lender and no one that I could get a hold of knew anything or would tell me anything about what my options are.  I was just told to send a lot of different documents via snail mail to their corporate offices.  Does anyone know if I have to refinance them under my name? Will I need to pay them off?  Can I just transfer them to my name?  I really have no idea what this will look like.  

I'm very sorry for your loss.

Since you're on title that's the most important thing as that means that you or the trust that you control own the home. If you want to refinance the home into your name you would have needed his signature to give escrow permission to order the payoff. In lieu of that you will have to furnish the death certificate to get the payoff from the current lender via escrow. The payoff will be ordered by escrow so just have that document handy.

Take care and I hope this helps.