<prompt> Human: UpdateIve just posted an update here: I posted this on rlegaladvice and people asked me to post here.Location: Las Vegas, NVIm really overwhelmed right now and I dont even know where to begin. Google searching isnt helping at all.My father passed away suddenly and he left his taxable brokerage account to me via a transfer on death policy. I presented the death certificate to the brokerage and took control of it a while ago. It took some time to go through the account and learn about stocks. A week after possessing the account it went negative 75k from positive 50k. and the brokerage liquidated everything. The broker issued a margin call on the account. I had no idea at the time why this happened but doing some research it seems like my dad short selled some call options naked according to the broker. I think it means he was betting that a stock would go down but it went up instead and he risked unlimited losses.The broker is demanding payment from me. This is really really crippling as I cant just come up with 75k and I dont know how it is possible to inherit debt. The broker told me I was responsible the day I did the transfer of death and should have known and managed the positions before doing so. To me its really ridiculous that there could be these lurking time bombs. Do they have any legal responsibility to close out risky positions such as that?I dont know what to do or who to turn to. Is it possible to get back the 50k and not have a debt? If not, is it possible to turn it back over to his estate so Im not on the hook for a huge bill?  <response>: Get a lawyer.A brokerage does their due diligence before allowing a client to open a margin account. The brokerage should have done this when you took over the account and when you did not qualify for the margin account the brokerage should have taken the necessary steps to convert your account back to a basic brokerage account with no margin privileges. In essence the brokerage lent money to someone that did not qualify. Thats on the brokerage. 