You are right on the general concept, but wrong on the terminology. You need what are called voluntary letters. The application fee is $1.

If your mother has a life estate she can have anyone live there -- free or not -- whom she wants. Short answer is nothing you can do now.

Your question is too filled with a mix of legal terms and colloquialisms to answer. How did you "inherit"? If before death, death is not...

In theory, yes. But take the money and likely nothing will happen. There would need to be an estate to claim the bills, and creditors rarely seek...

Not based on your post. There is nothing to do here.

It does not go into a trust. It goes into a guardianship. You need to apply to be guardian of your son for surrogate's court purposes, as well as...

Do the probate. But it is a simple probate, so there is no reason not to do it.

Yes, if he is competent to do so. If not, you will need other work.

No. You would need to do an estate proceeding. Also, if there are kids, they inherit half.

This was a failure of drafting not to have any mechanism for a successor. You are going to have to bring a court proceeding on notice to all next...