What is Probate? Probate is a legal process, A Will still passes through probate, The historical purpose of probate court, Your family has no control. What causes Probate? Probate is a Latin derivative that means “to prove.” A will must be proven before the court. The existence of a will requires probate court.
Why is there a need for Estate Planning?
By developing an Estate Plan, you can control your assets and save your heirs from the lengthy, costly and emotionally draining process of going through the probate court system. You have worked hard for your assets and it only makes sense to preserve as much of it as possible for your heirs to receive.
The article, which was written with physicians in mind but still applies for all types of estates, proposes two scenarios which can lead to beneficiaries not receiving what you intend them to.
Where funding a trust is important, and this article reiterates that point, it is also imperative – as the article notes – to review it. The article explains that, over time, things can change, such as your job or overall financial situation, for the better or for the worse.
This article begins with a question and an answer, regarding the funding of a trust and what that means. It uses the analogy of a box that, while functional on its own it is only truly useful when something is put into it. The article explains that trusts are similar, a trust can exist without anything in it, and some people believe its existence is simply enough, but this is simply not so.
This article admits that there are numerous myths surrounding estate planning, chief among them that we have the time to make one later. That is one of the six myths the article works to dismiss in order to help readers understand the important role a timely, well-thought out estate plan plays, especially if an accident were to happen.
This article, written for Forbes, discusses the importance of the people who will make the decisions for an estate once somebody has died – or in some cases, while they are still living. It refers to them as ‘time bombs,’ as they can make or break how one’s estate is handled.
The law can change, quickly, and it is important to keep up with these changes – whether you are using a living will or a living trust. It lays out, first, the key difference between a living trust and a living will – the former is a private document and can’t be scrutinized by the public.
While death can be a difficult topic to discuss, by not doing so, it can throw a large wrench into the processes that occur afterward. One of these processes that occurs, when there are no legal documents set in place to prevent it, is probate. Probate is a topic that can mean something different to everybody – but it is a process that anybody can go through. Probate is a process that occurs when a person dies, and their assets are not left to another person or entity – this is so that the state can ensure that all debts are paid upon a person’s death.
It’s possible you have seen this in a movie or a television show or even read about it in the news or in a book, but the process of disinheriting a family member is a very real possibility. There are different ways to disinherit different people, but it is possible to disinherit a spouse, a child, and even a sibling, or a parent – though the latter two are far rarer than the former two for obvious reasons. When it comes down to your estate, if you die there are laws that determine how your estate can be divided amongst your family – if you lack a spouse or children, it will generally go to your other blood relatives.