Monica Mahmoodzadeh, the widow of Payam Mahmoodzadeh, filed a petition for year’s support in the Probate Court of Cobb County, seeking to set aside real property and funds in various money-market accounts. In response to the petition, Renasant Bank and the parents of the decedent, Aghdad and Roohullah Mahmoodzadeh, filed caveats objecting to setting aside one of the accounts and the real property as year’s support, contending that these items were not part of the decedent’s estate. The probate court allowed these objections and subsequently denied any sum of year’s support to the widow on the basis that she had failed to prove the amount of year’s support necessary. This appeal by the widow follows, in which she contends that the trial court erred by 1 exceeding its subject matter jurisdiction, 2 allowing the bank and decedent’s parents to raise objections, 3 converting caveats challenging title into caveats as to the nature and amount of year’s support, and 4 improperly shifting the burden of proof to the widow. And because we agree that the probate court erred by allowing objections by the bank and decedent’s parents on the basis of adverse title, we reverse the court’s judgment and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. The record reflects that Payam and Monica Mahmoodzadeh were married without children, and that Payam died intestate on July 28, 2010. On August 16, 2010, the widow filed a petition for year’s support from the decedent’s estate, proposing to set aside the balance of four money-market accounts. In response to this petition, Renasant Bank filed a caveat on September 17, 2010, contending that one of the money-market accounts was not part of the decedent’s estate and, thus, that it could not be set aside as year’s support.
In November 2010, the widow amended the schedule of property requested for year’s support to include, in addition to the four money-market accounts previously requested, four pieces of real property. Thereafter, the decedent’s parents sought permission to file an out-of-time caveat to the petition for year’s support and filed same on April 12, 2011. The parents’ caveat contended that the four pieces of real property were “a continuing joint investment program between the decedent and . . . his parents.” The parents amended their caveat two times but continued to solely argue that the real property should not be set aside in an award of year’s support due to the parents’ ownership interest in the property. The widow sought to dismiss the parents’ caveat on the basis that they did not have an enforceable interest in the land and that they lacked standing to bring a caveat against the petition for year’s support.
