How can I know if a right of survivorship exists for my late mother’s co-owned mobile home? Is contesting the will worth it?
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
My mother recently passed in PA (Allegheny County). She jointly purchased a manufactured/mobile home in a park with an ex-husband in 2023. The county parcel summary lists both names as owners, but deed book/page are “000,” and no purchase deed appears in the county real estate records (though I can see the traditional house they sold that same year). My understanding is that this means they own the home, just not the land.
The mobile home park believes the home likely passes automatically to the surviving co-owner, but they were not certain whether rights of survivorship actually exist.
Questions:
- In Pennsylvania, are manufactured/mobile homes in parks typically titled through PennDOT rather than deed records?
- Is there any public way to determine whether survivorship rights exist on the title?
- If probate has not yet been opened, who can request or access the title information?
- As next-of-kin with the death certificate, despite not being the co-owner, could we obtain a copy to determine survivorship rights?
As a side note, we are fairly certain a will exists to give everything to her ex-spouse and that it was signed under duress. We (her children) are not the executor. I thought perhaps they made her sign the will to ensure the other half of the house goes to him upon her death, indicating that survivorship might not be stated in the title. She has essentially no other assets of value, which is another reason why we think they went to the trouble of having her sign a will. An APS investigation for abuse/neglect/fraud (since he was her paid caregiver through the state) has been substantiated and we are waiting on the medical examiner’s report for cause of death (a suspicious death report was filed and so he did a full autopsy), so it is possible he may be found liable for her death in some capacity. We wouldn’t contest the will if rights of survivorship exist anyway, but we probably would if they do not simply because we do not want him to profit off of her death. Any thoughts about contesting the will in this scenario would be helpful too!
Thank you in advance!!