Archive for the ‘Probate Court’ Category
Finally, after the court is satisfied that all legal requirements have been met, it will order all debts, claims, taxes, attorney”s fees and the personal representative ‘s compensation and any other miscelaneous expenses to be paid.
If there is not enough cash in the estate to pay these substantial claims, the judge can order that assets be sold at public auctions or estate sales.
These transactions are often conducted in a depressed market or under the heading of “distressed sales “.
Only after all the bills are paid will the probate court distribute the estate to the beneficiaries named in the Will: or if there is no Will, to the designated heirs at law.
The court then closes the file !
Get the best legal counsel you can right at the start. After reading some of the problems possible , every adult would be very wise to quickly become familiar with a lawyer, notary, financial planner etc. to avoid facing major problems.
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Register the Location of where you will keep your Will so it can be easily found when needed with a WORLDS WILLS LOCATIONS REGISTRY.
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Does Joint Tenancy or Tenancy by the Entirety avoid a Death Probate ?
Well, sometimes it can :
In the case of a husband and wife who own their assets in joint tenancy or tenancy by the entirety, there’s no death probate when the first spouse dies because title passes automatically to the surviving joint tenant.
However, when the surviving spouse dies, there will be a complete probate on the entire estate.!
The fact that joint tenancy ownership or tenancy by the entirety avoids death probate at the first spouse’s death, it is a small reward for the many other disadvantages of joint tenancy ownership.
It is possible that it can lead to huge unexpected liability when parents and children own assets together.
In community property states/prov’s, it may create a capital gains tax problem.
It may, and can create unintended beneficiaries and often causes gift and death tax problems in some jurisdictions.
For these reasons, many estate planning experts concur that joint tenancy may not be the best planning avenue to follow ?
Identified sometimes as the Perils of Probate, individuals should see and understand the importance of working with a legal professional at all times to be certain to avoid the many pitfalls that could confront any novice attempting to stickhandle around the legality of probate.
This blog constantly reminds individuals to use estate planners, financial planners, lawyers, notaries, trust officers and insurance planners to get the best counsel available today. They are all available , and often give free advice when they are first contacted.
The information often given on this blog, is general information only and individuals should always seek the opinions of their legal counsel before making any legal decisions. The constantly changing legal laws make that necessary.
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ONLY 3 days until your chance to take a Diabetes Risk Test on Tuesday March 23rd. This program is promoted by the American Diabetes Association to remind people to check to see if they are at risk for Type 2 diabetes, as they expect another seven thousand plus new diabetic’s this year.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ONE OWNS PROPERTY IN ANOTHER PROV/STATE ?
A probate must be instituted not only in the prov/state where you live, but in every prov/state where you owned real estate. This is called ancillary probate.
Each prov/state, has probate jurisdiction of the real property within its borders.
What that means, is that your family will have to file a new probate in each area and hire local counsel to represent the estate.
Thusly, this will add expenses that must be paid before your family may receive it’s share !
With ever changing laws, one can see the importance of using a good legal professional in designing your estate .
Check to see if you have Type 2 diabetes on Tuesday March 23rd, the American Diabetes Risk Test day.
In suggestion no.3, we said that an accurate inventory and appraisal of all items had to be made.
Once all the debts and claims have been submitted and approved, they’re presented to the court for approval to pay them from the assets of the estate. Since it is possible that some estates may also have death tax liability, they must stay open until those taxes are paid.
This can be the volatile period of the probate process.
During the entire probate process, disgruntled heirs or those who disagree with the provisions in the Will, can bring a lawsuit in the probate court. This is when someone contests the Will.
They can hold up the distribution of the estate and quite often are used to intimidate heirs into settling cases that really have no merit.
People can minimize some of these difficulties by having a good legal professional work with them in when they begin drafting their Wills and Estate Plans. They will receive the legal guidance to avoid some of these pitfalls.
Only 8 days to finalize your visit to your Doctor for the Diabetes Risk Test day, Tuesday March 23rd, ?
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with your Will, and full estate planning.
What many, many need but fail to act, is help to begin the process of collecting all the information they will require. Licences, registrations, mortgages, bank loans, birth certificates, marriage license, divorce papers, property titles and locations, etc. and any good financial/legal advisor will explain any others.
Several portions of this blog over the last year has offered simple and easy to follow guidance and direction to valueable sources to help you finalize this very important action for the protection of your family’s future.
A Diabetes Risk Test is suggested you take Tuesday March 23rd. Only 11 days to think about it , and the Worlds Wills Locations Registry offer you congratulations for doing so.
A third step in the probate process:
During probate all assets in the Estate are usually FROZEN so that an accurate inventory and appraisal can be made.
That simply means, that during thios period NONE of the assets can be distributed or sold without written permission from the court.
Quite often the court will require formal written appraisals for many items, such as real estate, antiques, collectibles, automobiles, furniture and other valueable assets.
Here again, appraisal fees can become expensive and like All probate expenses, are paid out of the estate funds.
People can quite often make amazing savings on these time consuming efforts by the court, by making and having on hand their own up-to-date assets and possessions inventory recorded, and stored with the location of their Will.
Please mark on your calender, ONLY 13 days until the American Diabetes Risk Test offering on March 23rd. The time spent will be a good investment on your health.
Answering questions, the second major job of the probate court is to order that the decedents creditors have been notified so they can present their claims to the court for payment.
This requires the costly time consuming job of inventoring all of the decedent’s liabilities.
The creditors are notified either by notices in the local newspaper or directly by mail.
The state/prov. law, set a time table that the probate proceeding must be left open to allow creditors the chance to present their claims.
In most all cases the creditor period is several months long.
One can minimize that time by having a properly drafted Will with the specific information already outlined.
Individuals have the total freedom to take as much time as necessary to get the proper counselling with any number of available pr0fessionals, to draft up an almost fool-proof Will and Estate plan for the BEST PROTECTION of their families and assets avoiding higher fees for wasteful searches and higher taxes often looming.
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The Worlds Wills Locations Registies encourages everyone to take advantage of the American Diabetes Association Risk Test opportunity on Tuesday March 23rd.
A reader asks…….Who starts this process ?
A formal written petition to the court along with a filing fee must be submitted to the court to start the probate process.
One of the courts first jobs is to approve or appoint someone to handle the affairs of the estate. This person is called the executor, administor or personal representative depending upon the rules of the state/prov, and whether the decedent died with or without a Will.
We will call this agent of the estate a “personal representative”.
Generally, the first thing the personal representative does is hire an experienced probate attorney, although that may not always be a legal requirement.
In many cases, hiring an attorney may become a practical necessity because probate paperwork and filing procedures can be very comlex.
Another step to follow.
Remember March 23rd, Diabetes Risk Test Day.
Seldom does anyone think about a death probate!
As a matter of fact many, if not most people , do not even know what that means ?
It really not difficult to understand when one becomes aware of what it means, and at some time towards the end of their lives as they contemplate Wills and Estates, most who draft Wills will become quite famaliar with the term .
At your death,your assets need to be distributed to your heirs. Your debts need to be paid and any loose ends need to be looked after.
You, obviously, can’t sign deeds, write checks or handle your business affairs.
The Probate Court now takes over these duties.
The probate process is a long complicated and bureaucratic nightmare for most families, and without a properly drafted WILL or Living Trust, can sometimes take 2 to 3 years to finalize. Even then, some decisions by the Courts may not end up in your favor.
This corner advises to take the valueable time with family to sit down and efficiently and quitely map out a comfortable solution that you want to achieve.
You wil be very happy you did,
Today’s wealthy are re-examining their estate portfolio’s after becoming aware of serious revelations about the Wills and Probate expenses incurred by some of their former colleagues.
The horrendous expenses of probate of the estate of the late John D. Rockerfelleer were $16,991,640.00 to settle an estate valued at $26,771,834.00 leaving only $9,780,194.00! A 63% reduction in value !
The Frederick Vanderbuilt estate story is just as glaring. $42,846,112.00 in court and legal fees to settle the $76,838,530.00 estate ! More than half of the estate value eaten up by court and legal fees leaving only $33,992,418.00 !
The Cecil deMille’s estate costs were $1,396,064.00 to settle that $4,043,607.00 estate.
The Walt Disney estate settlement costs were $4,789,888.00 for his $20,982,796.00 e4state !
The Elvis Presley estate costs were $3,542,083.00 of the $6,332,882.00 estate !
While these costs seem autrocious, IF the proper type of planning of the estate had taken place, less extra time would not have been required to accumalate and finalize the details of the probate would have been necessry
While some wealthy individuals spend considerable time and effort to accumalate these large estates, evidence is showing that far too little time was spent with family and other legal professionals in plans on how to protect more of the estate value to be available for the family.
Empower yourself to take the necessary time to investigate and learn more about how to draft an effective estate plan that maximizes the greatest benifit to your family !
Don’t lose any more than you have to because of lack of, or very poor planning. !