Getting unstuck: settling a
sister-in-law's estate

The people we have dealt with have been incredibly professional, helpful, and kind.

Barbara Bourque

When Barbara Bourque's sister-in-law passed away, she and her husband Stephen didn't expect estate settlement to be easy. But they thought they could handle it themselves—until they couldn't. Their sister-in-law had lived in Michigan, had no children, and had moved around in her final years, which meant no one was sure which probate court even applied to her estate. Barbara and Stephen pulled up the court website and ran into form after form with no guidance on which ones were relevant.

They tried to navigate probate themselves but it was too confusing and stressful.

A financial advisor they'd worked with had recently seen a presentation about Alix and mentioned it to them. They made the call. That first conversation was enough to move them forward. An Alix Settlement Specialist explained the fee structure, and shared that the Alix Legal Team had advised the estate required full probate—not a simplified small estate administration. It was exactly the kind of determination Barbara and Stephen hadn't been able to make on their own.

Barbara and Stephen live far from where the estate was being administered, and Stephen's health made travel difficult. The estate still required navigating full probate, dealing with the bank, coordinating with family members, and waiting on a court system that moves at its own pace. Alix filed the paperwork, identified what was needed at each step, and kept the process moving.

There were 14 courts. We weren't sure which one pertained because she passed in a nursing home. There were a million forms. We didn't know where to start.

Barbara had assumed a modest, uncomplicated estate would resolve relatively quickly. It didn't. The process took well over a year, with stretches of waiting tied to court timelines, inventory filings, and debt notifications—each with its own requirements and pace.

Her advice to anyone starting out: expect 12 to 18 months, even for an estate without property.

THE RESULTS

An estate that was stalled, now
moving toward the finish line

Barbara and Stephen started out unable to figure out which court to file with. They ended up with a team that figured it out for them, filed the right paperwork, and guided them through a process they couldn't have navigated alone.

The estate isn't closed yet, but it's on track. "Alix is wonderful," she said. "It's really been an invaluable service and I would go with it again."