Background
Charles W. Buckner Sr. died intestate on September 15, 2022, leaving five adult children, including Carolyn Hasan. His son Charles Buckner Jr. sought and obtained appointment as estate administrator. Hasan objected to his appointment and opposed various estate administration actions, relying primarily on sovereign citizen theories that Ohio courts have uniformly rejected.
The estate held two parcels of real property. Buckner sought authority to sell both properties to pay estate debts. All other heirs consented; Hasan alone objected, claiming the decedent did not want the property sold and that she was entitled to it for care services. She failed to support her objection with the required transcript or affidavit under Civil Rule 53(D)(3)(b)(iii).
Buckner also filed a concealment action under R.C. 2109.50 and 2109.52, alleging Hasan had wrongfully converted estate assets. He alleged she withdrew $20,000 from a deposit account fourteen days after the death and, nine months later, transferred over $31,000 from estate accounts into a trust she had created and claimed to manage as trustee.
The Court’s Holding
The court affirmed both judgments. On the real estate sale, the court held that the trial court properly applied R.C. 2127.04(B), which permits an administrator to sell estate real property without unanimous consent if: (1) at least fifty percent of interested parties consent, (2) no person with an aggregate interest exceeding twenty-five percent objects, and (3) the sale serves the estate’s best interest. All three conditions were satisfied. Hasan’s argument that R.C. 2127.04(A) (requiring unanimous consent) applied because it appears before subsection (B) was rejected as lacking legal or rational basis.
On the concealment claim, the court affirmed the trial court’s finding that Hasan unlawfully conveyed and possessed estate money. The record showed Hasan forged her father’s signature on the trust document, hand-wrote his social security number on account paperwork, created the trust account months after his death, and transferred funds from accounts that bore his name at the time of death. Although Hasan invoked the Fifth Amendment and claimed her father had “entrusted” her with handling his affairs, she produced no documentary evidence that the transfers were authorized before his death. The trial court found the documentary evidence, by itself, established the wrongful concealment.
Key Takeaways
- R.C. 2127.04(B) permits non-consensual sale of estate real property if statutory thresholds are met; disagreement from a single heir with less than twenty-five percent interest does not block the sale.
- Statutory interpretation does not proceed by alphabetical order; earlier subsections do not automatically override later ones.
- Forging a decedent’s signature on trust documents and thereafter transferring estate assets into that trust constitutes actionable concealment under R.C. 2109.50 and 2109.52.
- Sovereign citizen arguments, including claims about “flesh and blood” status and lack of court jurisdiction over natural persons, are frivolous and will be summarily rejected.
- In quasi-criminal concealment proceedings, a defendant may assert Fifth Amendment rights, but documentary evidence can establish guilt without the defendant’s testimony.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces Ohio probate law’s protections for estate administration when a fiduciary acts with the consent of the interested parties. The court’s rejection of Hasan’s statutory interpretation argument—that R.C. 2127.04(A) applied simply because it precedes subsection (B)—confirms that probate statutes must be read holistically and according to their actual text and purpose, not arbitrary ordering. Executors and administrators can rely on the statutory safe harbor in R.C. 2127.04(B) to sell estate property over the objection of a minority heir.
The concealment judgment establishes that self-dealing conduct—such as forging signatures, creating personal trusts in one’s favor, and transferring estate assets post-death—will be treated as criminal or quasi-criminal misconduct, even when the fiduciary claims benign intent. Heirs and creditors alleging that a fiduciary has wrongfully converted estate assets need not overcome the fiduciary’s testimony if documentary evidence demonstrates the transfers and their timing. The decision also provides a cautionary example of how frivolous legal theories and procedural deficiencies compound and ultimately defeat an appellant’s case.