64.1-151.4 - Source, determination and documentation of family allowance, exempt property, and homestead allowance. - Virginia Statutes

§ 64.1-151.4. Source, determination and documentation of family allowance,exempt property, and homestead allowance.

If the estate is otherwise sufficient, property specifically bequeathed ordevised shall not be used to satisfy rights to exempt property and homesteadallowance. Subject to this restriction, the surviving spouse or the guardianof the minor children may select property of the estate as exempt propertyand homestead allowance. The personal representative may make theseselections if the surviving spouse or the guardian of the minor children isunable or fails to do so within a reasonable time, or if there is no guardianof the minor children. The personal representative may execute a deed ofdistribution to establish the ownership of property taken as homesteadallowance or exempt property, which deed, if executed, shall: (i) describethe property with reasonable certainty, and (ii) state the value of eachasset included therein. The personal representative may determine the familyallowance in a lump sum not exceeding $18,000, or periodic installments notexceeding $1,500 per month for one year; and he may disburse funds of theestate in payment of the family allowance and any part of the exempt propertyor homestead allowance, payable in cash.

The personal representative or any interested person aggrieved by anyselection, determination, payment, proposed payment or failure to act underthis section may petition the circuit court for appropriate relief, whichrelief may provide a family allowance larger or smaller than that which thepersonal representative determined or could have determined. Such petitionmay be ex parte; provided, however, that the court in its discretion mayrequire such notice to and the convening of interested parties as it may deemproper in each case.

(1981, c. 580; 1996, c. 549; 2001, c. 368.)