My Husband’s Father’s Property Has Never Been Settled And We Think He’s Entitled To Far More Than His Step-mother’s Lawyer Is Suggesting.

Location: MA

My husbands father died years ago, and the real estate never got settled. He died without a will, and in Mass, it states that the spouse is entitled to the first $100,000 in value(after subtracting mortgage) and then everything else is split equally between heirs, which in this case is 2. So my husband is entitled to 50% of the value after the mortgage and 100,000k.

His stepmom offered to buy him out at a lowball offer so he said no and then he somehow got the bad advice that he couldn’t force her to sell and split the profits, as long as she used it has her primary residence she could remain in the house and just keep it in his fathers name.

Well now we have a lawyer who assured us, no, if they can’t agree to a buy out price the courts will force it to be sold. And since the market is now post COVID pricing, the house is worth 200k+ more than it was when his father died.

Her lawyer is claiming that based on the value of the house at time of death, 50% after mortgage and 100k was equal to 15% of the value of the house. So, whatever the house sells for now, my husband would get 15%. The original calculation would have meant he was owed around 140k. Their current argument says he’s owed only 65k.

I haven’t been particularly happy with the lawyer and the lawyer is saying that her lawyer is actually correct based on some statute but I can’t find any statute to corroborate this. When we first hired this lawyer, he never said anything about this and said it was a simple case of 50% of the remaining value after the other deductions.