EDITORIAL: Bill is a highlight of bipartisanship at the Legislature

Nevada’s 83rd legislative session is in the books and featured more than 1,150 bills. As would be expected, the proposals ran the gamut from jewels to clunkers, with most landing somewhere in between.

But one piece of legislation in particularly stands out as an example of what is possible in Carson City when Democrat and Republican lawmakers work together to correct an obvious wrong.

Last week, Gov. Joe Lombardo signed Senate Bill 404, which passed both the Senate and Assembly unanimously. The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by state Sen. Melanie Scheible, a Las Vegas Democrat, crafted the proposal in response to a Review-Journal investigation which found that Nevada law placed few restrictions on who manages a probate case when an individual dies without a will. State law, in fact, allows anyone “legally qualified” to step up.

This created a lucrative market for third-party interests — real estate investors, private administrators and attorneys — to profit from the process while relatives received a pittance, if anything.

The investigation revealed that these agents “often started cases without family involvement and routinely obtained court authority to sell homes through a process that does not require a judge’s approval of the deal or a competitive bidding that could boost the price.” They also “frequently sold homes at steep discounts to estimated values, often to the same circle of repeat buyers who resold them within months” at prices well above the cost of the original purchase. “The probate cases,” the report revealed, “often ended with nothing for heirs.”

The law was intended to allow for the timely and orderly disposition of an estate when relatives didn’t exist, couldn’t be found or didn’t want the bother. But fairness dictates that every effort should be made to ensure family members have the opportunity to take part in the task if they so desire.

SB404 imposes safeguards to assure that third-party administrators don’t abuse the state’s liberal probate statutes. The reforms demand that those seeking to be deemed “legally qualified” now provide a court with evidence to that effect, along with affidavits indicating their efforts to locate any potential heirs. It also limits who can become an “independent administrator,” and thus able to sell the deceased’s home without a judge’s approval or open bidding.

SB404 rights an injustice and provides families with more protections in what is often a difficult and confusing legal maze. Relatives shouldn’t be pushed to the sidelines to benefit participants who had no connection to their lost loved one. SB404 is a tribute to bipartisanship and fairness.