COA 374989 IN RE MATA ESTATE Opinion - Per Curiam - Unpublished 5/15/2026

If this opinion indicates that it is “FOR PUBLICATION,” it is subject to
revision until final publication in the Michigan Appeals Reports.
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S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N
C O U R T O F A P P E A L S
In re ESTATE OF MATA.
RYAN PHILLIPS, Personal Representative of the
ESTATE OF BAUDELIO AGUILAR MATA,
Petitioner-Appellee,
UNPUBLISHED
May 15, 2026
10:33 AM
V No. 374989
Ingham Probate Court
LUSMARIA MIETALKA, LC No. 24-000255-DE
Respondent-Appellant.
Before: KOROBKIN, P.J., and RIORDAN and MARIANI, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
Respondent, Lusmaria Mietalka,1 appeals by right the probate court’s order permitting
petitioner to amend an existing purchase agreement between petitioner and Mata Farm, LLC, for
the purchase of Baudelio Mata’s (decedent’s) real property. We affirm.
I. BASIC FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
This case concerns the disposition of decedent’s 128-acre farm. Decedent had 15 living
children at the time of his death, including Mietalka, Baudelio Mata Jr. (Baudelio Jr.), Trenidad
Mata (Trenidad), and Maria Cavazos. Decedent’s will generally left his estate to his “surviving
children in as equal portions as possible.” Following decedent’s death in February 2024, petitioner
was appointed as personal representative of decedent’s estate and began taking steps to sell the
farm. The property was appraised at $630,000, and in August 2024 Baudelio Jr. and Trenidad
offered to purchase decedent’s property for $650,000. This offer was contingent on a satisfactory
1 We note that, in the record and the parties’ briefing, respondent’s last name is often spelled
“Mietelka.” For purposes of this opinion, we use the spelling reflected in the caption of the instant
appeal.

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inspection of the property, and on Baudelio Jr. and Trenidad obtaining a mortgage. Petitioner
accepted this offer on August 7, 2024, and the purchase agreement set a closing date of September
18, 2024. Shortly after that agreement was signed, Mietalka entered into an agreement with
petitioner to purchase the property for $650,000 in cash. This new agreement was conditioned
upon the failure of the August 7, 2024 purchase agreement, and stated as follows: “This agreement
will only enter into an executory phase upon the termination of that agreement. Buyer herein
understands the 08/07/2024 agreement may be amended or extended as conditions warrant.”
After an inspection found significant issues with the property’s on-site water-supply and
waste-water systems, petitioner agreed with Baudelio Jr. and Trenidad to extend the closing date
of their purchase agreement to October 18, 2024, and then to December 18, 2024. During that
time, Ingham County Health Department’s sanitarian also inspected the water-supply and waste-
water systems. This inspection likewise found several issues and resulted in the issuance of a
nonconformance letter, which indicated that petitioner could not transfer the property until he
either completed corrective actions or established an escrow account with 1.5 times the amount
estimated to be necessary for making the requisite repairs. Petitioner did not receive the final
estimate to finalize an escrow agreement until January 22, 2025.
In the meantime, Baudelio Jr. and Trenidad joined four of their siblings, including Cavazos,
to form Mata Farm, LLC. On December 20, 2024, at the request of Baudelio Jr. and Trenidad,
petitioner agreed to amend the purchase agreement to make Mata Farm the buyer and delay closing
until January 31, 2025. As the new closing date approached, however, petitioner learned that Mata
Farm was unable to obtain the necessary financing. Mata Farm asked petitioner to amend the
agreement again, this time to add Cavazos as an individual purchasing party so that she and Mata
Farm could purchase the property with Cavazos’s funds and obviate the need for further financing.
On the same day as this latest request, Mietalka offered to purchase the property for $650,000 in
cash, with no contingencies or inspections but with the requirement that the estate pay her realtor’s
$6,000 commission. Petitioner initially rejected Mata Farm’s request to further amend the August
7, 2024 purchase agreement, and then filed a petition for instruction in the probate court regarding
the request and Mietalka’s objection to it in light of her pending offer. Mata Farm and Mietalka
each filed responses to the petition in support of their respective offers and positions.
At the hearing on the petition, the probate court heard argument from the parties’ attorneys
and also received comments from various other, unrepresented members of the decedent’s family
regarding their views of the dispute. As is particularly relevant here, Mietalka challenged the latest
proposed amendment to the August 7, 2024 purchase agreement, arguing that the initial offer by
Baudelio Jr. and Trenidad was no longer valid in light of the significant change in parties. Mietalka
also asserted that her offer to purchase the property in cash with no contingencies was a superior
offer. The probate court disagreed with Mietalka’s position. The court noted that Mata Farm
included the original proposed purchasers and four of decedent’s children, and its offer provided
“an opportunity to continue this property . . . to the benefit of a large number of the siblings that
are left behind.” The court observed that the delays in Mata Farm’s purchase of the property were
reasonable and that its offer, unlike Mietalka’s, did not require the estate to pay any commission.
The court concluded that Mata Farm’s acquisition of the property would provide the most benefit
to decedent’s family members, consistent with the decedent’s intent, and that Mata Farm and
Cavazos should be given 30 days to purchase the property from the estate. Accordingly, the court
entered an order permitting petitioner to amend the purchase agreement and add Cavazos as an

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individual party, with the condition that the closing date be no later than 30 days from the date of
the order. The court also instructed petitioner to accept Mietalka’s offer if Mata Farm and Cavazos
failed to close within 30 days.2
This appeal followed.
II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW
This Court generally reviews a probate court’s decisions “for an abuse of discretion,”
which “occurs when the decision resulted in an outcome falling outside the range of principled
outcomes.” In re Estate of Huntington, 339 Mich App 8, 17; 981 NW2d 72 (2021) (quotation
marks and citation omitted). “[A]n abuse of discretion standard acknowledges that there will be
circumstances in which there will be no single correct outcome; rather, there will be more than one
reasonable and principled outcome.” Maldonado v Ford Motor Co, 476 Mich 372, 388; 719 NW2d
809 (2006) (quotation marks and citation omitted). That said, “[a]n error of law necessarily
constitutes an abuse of discretion.” Huntington, 339 Mich App at 17 (quotation marks and citation
omitted). “This Court reviews the probate court’s findings of fact for clear error. A factual finding
is clearly erroneous when this Court is left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has
been made.” Id. (quotation marks and citations omitted).
III. ANALYSIS
On appeal, Mietalka argues that the probate court abused its discretion by directing
petitioner to amend the purchase agreement’s buyers and closing date in service of an ever-
changing and conditional offer, rather than to accept her superior unconditional cash offer. We
disagree.
A personal representative is a fiduciary, MCL 700.1104(e), who “stands in a position of
confidence and trust with respect to each heir, devisee, beneficiary, protected individual, or ward
for whom the person is a fiduciary,” MCL 700.1212(1). “A personal representative is charged
with the fiduciary responsibility to see to the estate’s best interests, for the ultimate advantage of
those beneficially interested in the estate.” In re Merry Estate, 174 Mich App 627, 633; 436 NW2d
421 (1989). Further, a personal representative “is under a duty to settle and distribute the
decedent’s estate in accordance with the terms of a probated and effective will and this act, and as
expeditiously and efficiently as is consistent with the best interests of the estate.” MCL
700.3703(1). A personal representative “shall . . . take all steps reasonably necessary for the
management, protection, and preservation of, the estate in the personal representative’s
possession,” MCL 700.3709, and “shall proceed expeditiously with the settlement and distribution
of a decedent’s estate,” MCL 700.3704. In general, a personal representative shall proceed with
such settlement and distribution “without adjudication, order, or direction of the court,” but “the
2 Mietalka thereafter filed with the probate court a notice of lis pendens and a motion for stay of
proceedings pending appeal. Mata Farm petitioned to set aside the lis pendens and, following a
hearing, the probate court granted Mata Farm’s petition as well as Mietalka’s motion for stay.

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personal representative may invoke the court’s jurisdiction in a proceeding authorized by this act
to resolve a question concerning the estate or its administration.” Id.
Here, the personal representative petitioned for instruction from the probate court regarding
the competing offers that had been presented for decedent’s farm and the related request to amend
one such offer’s purchase agreement. We see no abuse of discretion in the probate court’s
resolution of that petition.
Mietalka first asserts that the probate court erred by treating the purchase agreement
between petitioner and Mata Farm as valid and enforceable, on the ground that the changes made
to the agreement altered it so significantly that it no longer bore a reasonable resemblance to the
initial agreement. Mietalka specifically takes issue with the changes made regarding the proposed
buyers and the repeated changes to the closing date. Mietalka, however, cites no authority to
meaningfully support the notion that these changes rendered the agreement invalid or
unenforceable, or that the court committed legal error in allowing them. Nor does our review of
the record reveal any error in the court’s assessment of the changes as reasonable. Baudelio Jr.
and Trenidad initially offered to purchase decedent’s property for $650,000, then joined with
several of their siblings to create Mata Farm, LLC. The first change in buyer only substituted Mata
Farm, which included Baudelio Jr. and Trenidad, as the proposed buyer, while the second change
simply added Cavazos, a member of Mata Farm, as an individual buyer, in order to facilitate
financing. It is apparent that these changes simply allowed Baudelio Jr. and Trenidad to purchase
the property through an LLC they shared with their siblings, and to obtain the requisite financing.
Similarly, Mietalka has not shown how the delays Mata Farm experienced in closing on
the property were unreasonable, given the reported defects with the property. The initial closing
date set forth in the August 7, 2024 purchase agreement was September 18, 2024, but this date was
ultimately amended to January 31, 2025, after the Ingham County Health Department’s inspection
identified issues with the property’s water and sewer systems. As a result, the Health Department
required petitioner to take corrective action, or create an escrow account, before the property could
be transferred. Petitioner did not receive necessary estimates to finalize an escrow agreement until
January 22, 2025, shortly before petitioner filed the petition for instruction. There is nothing in
the record to suggest that these delays were the result of any gratuitous intentional delay on the
part of Mata Farm, for instance, or were otherwise unreasonable. And finally, as noted, Mietalka
expressly recognized and agreed in her own purchase agreement that the August 7, 2024 purchase
agreement could be “amended or extended as conditions warranted.”
The record also does not support Mietalka’s assertion that her offer to purchase the property
was more beneficial to decedent’s estate because she could close in short order and pay cash with
no contingencies. Mietalka correctly asserts that the closing process for Mata Farm was delayed,
but she fails to acknowledge the cause of this delay. As discussed, the delayed closing date for the
August 7, 2024 agreement resulted from property defects that prevented its orderly transfer. The
initial closing date was therefore extended to allow the parties to obtain estimates for the necessary
repairs and establish an attendant escrow account, and petitioner did not receive the needed
estimates until late January 2025. There is no indication that Mietalka could have helped petitioner
satisfy Ingham County’s conditions for transfer any faster. Mietalka emphasizes her ability to pay
cash for the property, but that does not itself give her an advantage over Mata Farm. Unlike
Mietalka’s offer, the offer from Baudelio Jr. and Trenidad, and later from Mata Farm, was

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contingent on the buyers obtaining financing. But the record reflects that Mata Farm was later
able to obtain financing through Cavazos and was thus also able to pay $650,000 in cash once
Cavazos was added as an individual buyer. Mietalka additionally emphasizes that her offer
included no contingencies and waived any inspections that would typically be required. Mata
Farm’s offer was conditioned on successful inspections, but petitioner and Mata Farm had already
taken the steps necessary to address the property’s required repairs when the petition for instruction
was filed.
Furthermore, as the probate court recognized, the Mata Farm offer did not require the estate
to pay a realtor’s commission, whereas Mietalka’s offer required the estate to pay $6,000 for such
a commission, reducing the overall amount the estate would receive from a sale to Mietalka. The
probate court also considered the makeup of Mata Farm and the ability of decedent’s family
members to access the property. Mata Farm was made up of six of decedent’s 15 living children,
and the probate court heard from both decedent’s daughter and granddaughter that they believed
Mata Farm would allow a large part of decedent’s family to access the property.
Given that both parties were ultimately able to purchase the property for $650,000 in cash,
that petitioner and Mata Farm addressed the necessary repairs to the property, that Mietalka’s offer
required payment of the realtor’s commission by the estate, and that several of decedent’s children
were involved with Mata Farm, we see no error in the trial court’s rejection of Mietalka’s position
that her offer was superior or more beneficial to the estate.
In sum, Mietalka has failed to show any abuse of discretion in the probate court’s decision
to allow petitioner to amend the purchase agreement to add Cavazos as an individual party and to
afford Mata Farm and Cavazos a 30-day window to purchase the property. Both Mietalka and
Mata Farm made reasonable offers, which were for more than the appraised value of the property
and were from members of decedent’s family. In light of the large number of decedent’s living
children that would have access to the property and the overall amount the estate would receive
from the purchase, the probate court’s decision in favor of Mata Farm did not fall outside the range
of principled outcomes; that does not change simply because an outcome in favor of Mietalka
might also have been reasonable. See Maldonado, 476 Mich at 388. Mietalka has failed to show
any basis for this Court to disrupt the probate court’s decision.
Affirmed.
/s/ Daniel S. Korobkin
/s/ Michael J. Riordan
/s/ Philip P. Mariani

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