Claims Vs. Citations
Claims and citations are both meant to deal with a situation where you have a potential right to something in the possession of a deceased person or his or her estate. What's the difference?
A claim is filed when a decedent owed you money. For instance, credit card companies and mortgage companies file claims when a person to whom they have loaned money passes away. Similarly, if you loaned a friend $5,000 and the friend dies before paying you back, then you have a claim against the friend's estate.
A citation is filed when a decedent was holding property belonging to you at the time of his or her death (and vice versa -- a decedent's estate may file a citation against you if it believes you were holding property belonging to the decedent when the decedent died). In many citation cases, we aren't talking about a particular piece of property -- "hey, the estate has a car that belongs to me!" -- but are talking about a TYPE of property. Maybe the decedent was an attorney and overbilled you for fees (or is holding a personal injury settlement in his client trust account). You're trying to get that property back, and have the court rule that it belongs to you. In some cases, you may believe property belonging to you is being held by the estate, but you don't know how much. That's why the citation process has two steps: (1) citation to discover information (like discovery -- enables you to find out what the estate has) and (2) citation to recover assets (asks the court to rule that the property belongs to you).
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