My husband's father just died and we aren't sure if he had a will yet...?

My husband just found out yesterday that his father died. The coroner estimates that he had been dead for 2 months when they found the body. He hasn't spoken to his father in a few years. They haven't positively identified the body yet so we still haven't received a death certificate and since his body was found in his home, we are not yet able to go inside the condo and start going through papers to find a will. We have a list of things to check into but what is the process for all this. Especially if we can't find a will. What do we need to look into and what if he doesn't have a will? What will we need to do?We are pretty sure he owned his condo free and clear and he had a pension and he was also a veteran. Oh, and my husband is an only child.

His only ex-wife is my husband's mother. He has no other children, no other family, and he was a loner so he had no friends. Just a lonely alcoholic. I don't mean to sound insensitive but I never met him and my husband has no love for the man. He was an abusive father who left him when he was young and never paid child support.

Well, you can't do anything until you get a death certificate or a positive id. Then, you file a probate for intestate succession if he didn't have a Will or Testate succession if he had a Will and your husband was a beneficiary. I guess the worst situation for you would be that he did have a Will and left nothing to your husband. Since I don't know where you live, that's about all I can tell you. We are a Uniform Probate Code state and you do not need a lawyer to do a probate. The Probate Courts in my state have all the forms on-line or at the court.

If no will then your husband gets everything his father owns. If there is a Will then there might be big trouble because his father could give everything to charity or somebody.

Looks like his father was a loner so my guess is he doesn't have any girl friends. That is good news for you. No girl friend means money to you.

Just go down to the court house and file some papers. They will tell you what to do.

You just found out, and you're already worried about a will? Alrighty.
Anyway, unless you believe that someone is going to try to take the stuff- an ex wife, step kids, other siblings, etc, the lack of a will is not a big problem.
Without a will, it will just go into probate. It all depends on who is living that might have a claim against it- again, this primarily pertains to other children and ex-wives. A probate judge will divide it all up. If your husband is an only child, his mother is dead, and there are no other ex-wives, hidden bastard children or anything like that, then it would all just go to your husband via the probate court. It can either be real complex, or real easy, mainly depending on the kind of life he led.