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Edited on Fri Nov-14-08 11:01 PM by Divernan
I repeat, NO LEGAL STANDING. (I am a recently retired attorney/law professor, who deals with these questions for friends and relatives a lot.) There is no will and she is not party to any contracts or titles. The intestacy laws vary from state to state, but not much. Blood relatives take all inheritance; live-in significant others take zip. What happens to the real estate depends entirely on the manner in which the property was titled. Google "joint tenancy" and "tenancy in common".
If the deceased had sole title to the condo which he co-habited with your friend, that condo is now the property of whichever relatives survived him, as determined by state law. Absent spouse or children, the property will go to his parents. If the parents were both dead, it would go to his siblings. If he had no siblings, this is where the state laws can vary a lot, but property would go to grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, in varying proportions.
If the deceased had title with his friends to the condo in which he & your friend lived, and it was tenancy in common, that means he would have owned a specific share or percentage of the property. If 4 guys owned it, each would have 25%. When one dies, the others still own their 25 percent each, but the deceased's 25% goes to his heirs, i.e, his surviving close relatives, since he died without a will. IF the guy's title to his own condo was in joint tenancy, upon his death, the other joint tenants take his share and it doesn't go through his estate. In the former case, his mother has sole title and can do whatever she wants with the unit. In the latter case, your friend is depending on their good will to let her stay, and they can tell her to leave at any time.
This story is a good lesson for all of you out there. Everyone, no matter how healthy or young, should have a will. The deceased, since he evidently had a substantial investment in real estate, should definitely have executed a will. I hope his Mother will actually inherit something - because at some point she is going to be old and frail, and without a son to care for her.
You can go on line and download standard forms for wills according to the state in which you live, which will comply with your state's law. On edit: just read what you wrote about the "boys" pressuring the deceased's mother to "sign over" her interest. What a bunch of jerks! Reminds me of Alberto Gonzalez trying to get John Ashcroft to sign an order approving domestic spying while Ashcroft was in excurciating pain in a hospital. Or Newt Gingrich trying to get his wife to sign divorce papers as she was coming out of anesthesia after a cancer operation.
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