Deceased question

[Mark Gallagher]

My real estate mentor was diagnosed with a form of Leukemia in 2012. He passed away on 9/11 at the age of 60. He had approximately 30 units in 2010. Slowly he fell behind on payments, and eventually stopped paying all together as his health deteriorated. Some properties have already been taken back by the lender. At this point, there are 4 buildings I believe still in his personal name with his wife (which I can easily verify). The majority of the properties are worth less than what's owned. 

What's the next step? Do these properties go into his estate? And then the estate lets them get taken back and/or the estate attorney calls to negotiate a DIL? 

Most of them are underwater due to 2nd mortgages (obtained to get more units). Can the estate negotiate the 2nd to get removed somehow?

I'd like to try and salvage whatever is possible for the kids, and I'm going to be helping the wife try to clean this up as soon as possible for her sanity. Thankfully I don't deal with these situations often, so I'm looking to gain some knowledge so I can speak with intelligence about it. 

Any help is greatly appreciated.