Why You Should Try To Avoid The Probate Process

After you pass away, there will be things that you plan to leave behind to close friends and family members. It can be cash, property, or even a family heirloom that you want to pass down to someone important to you. If you have not done any estate planning by creating a trust, your entire estate may have to go through the probate process. It is a complicated legal process that involves proving that your will is real, identifying your property, paying any debts that you owe, and then distributing what is left. If you are not convinced that you want to avoid this process, here are some key reasons why you should take additional estate planning steps while you can.

Probate Costs Money

There will be a lot of people working on the probate process. Between attorney and court fees, expect to lose as much as 8% of the total value of your estate to pay for probate. Setting up a proper estate plan can help you avoid paying those expenses and pass them along to those that you leave behind.

Family Will Lose Control of the Estate

Be aware that your family will no longer have control of the estate once it enters probate. All decisions will be made by a judge who may not know what the best decision should be, potentially resulting in the opposite decision of what you once desired. For example, a judge will not know your family's history, and may decide to give assets to someone you may not have included in a trust. Utilizing a lawyer to help plan your estate is the only way to ensure that what you leave behind goes to the proper people.

Probate Is Very Slow

A big reason to avoid having an estate go through probate is the speed of the process. Legal processes naturally move slowly, and the entire process can take much longer than you would expect. If you have a large estate with taxes that need to be paid, it can take 1 year or more to go through probate. Assets that you wanted to pass down will not happen until the entire process is finished.

You do not want the last memories of your life to be the messy probate process that everyone had to go through. Work with a lawyer to come up with an estate plan that can simplify the process for everyone involved. Visit http://wrightlawidaho.com/ for more information.