Letitia James, the New York State Attorney General, has presented herself as a champion of legal integrity.
Yet documents filed under oath in her late father’s estate proceedings in 1999 appear to present legal problems for James involving property law, mortgage representations, and taxation requirements.
Letitia James’ father, Robert James, died on January 15, 1986. Thirteen years later, in 1999, Letitia filed a petition in Queens Surrogate’s Court seeking to administer his estate.
The only asset was a small townhome at 114-04 Inwood Street in Jamaica, Queens, a property Letitia had purchased with her father as “husband and wife” in 1983.
In sworn estate documents, Letitia claimed that the property was held as “tenants in common,” a legal classification that would require the probate court to transfer her father’s share of the house to Letitia.
“The property would not pass to the heirs of the decedent by operation of law,” James wrote in her affirmation, “because the decedent held the property with the undersigned as tenants in common with no right of survivorship.”
That distinction was crucial: unlike “joint tenancy,” which passes ownership directly to a surviving party such as a spouse, “tenancy in common” requires probate court to transfer the deceased’s share.
However, James’s account is contradicted by the mortgage Letitia and her father obtained as “husband and wife” in May 1983.
Hellbound and Down 