A little probate never hurt anyone, that’s what I’m learning from the process of handling my mother’s posthumous affairs and the administration of her trust. Like many people, I had been under the impression that having a legal structure that delineates the distribution of a person’s assets meant you didn’t have to deal with probate – which means filing with the courts after a death, either with a will or if there is none – and it would be smooth sailing for closing bank accounts, selling her house and distributing the family heirlooms.
“But sometimes you just need a little probate,” says John Ross, an elder law attorney at Ross & Shoalmire, based in Texas. It turns out that there’s a good reason that estate lawyers have clients sign a will and a trust at the same time. Families often need both because of commonly missed financial planning tasks and other things beyond anyone’s control, despite the best intentions. A trust can solve a lot of problems, but settling financial matters that aren’t included in the trust means probate in some form – either a shortened version for estates under a certain threshold set by the state where the person lives, or a full process that can be length …
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