[Rot 911]

Matt, lots of misinformation in this thread. Take your own advice and seek out a probate attorney. You can't just set up a trust for your grandmother and put everything of your grandfather's in it. Unless she is declared by a court to be incompetent, she makes her own decisions as to her life and finances.

If no will, then this is how Kansas law divides the property:

Kansas Statute Annotated 59-504: Surviving spouse. If the decedent leaves a spouse and no children nor issue of a previously deceased child, all the decedent's property shall pass to the surviving spouse. If the decedent leaves a spouse and a child, or children, or issue of a previously deceased child or children, one-half of such property shall pass to the surviving spouse.

History: L. 1939, ch. 180, § 26; July 1.

Kansas Statute Annotated 59-505: Same; half of realty to surviving spouse. Except as provided further, the surviving spouse shall be entitled to receive one-half of all real estate of which the decedent at any time during the marriage was seized or possessed and to the disposition whereof the survivor shall not have consented in writing, or by a will, or by an election as provided by law to take under a will, except such real estate as has been sold on execution or judicial sale, or taken by other legal proceeding. The surviving spouse shall not be entitled to any interest under the provisions of this section in any real estate of which such decedent in such decedent's lifetime made a conveyance, when such spouse at the time of the conveyance was not a resident of this state and never had been during the existence of the marriage relation. The spouse's entitlement under this section shall be included as part of the surviving spouse's property under K.S.A. 59-6a207, and amendments thereto.

History: L. 1939, ch. 180, § 27; L. 1996, ch. 53, § 1; July 1.