August 20, 2018

You might have heard that probate is an expensive and time-consuming process, and that is certainly true. Another added downside of probate is that your personal estate becomes a matter of public record. This is one of the biggest reasons to consider avoiding going through the probate process.

A properly structured estate plan makes things easier to transfer those assets efficiently without a grueling process known as probate. Without a will, the probate process is officially guided by your state’s legal standards for the distribution of property after a person passes away.

Avoiding probate now will help your family members in a difficult time and ensure that your estate is managed as efficiently as possible.

There are five simple ways that you can discuss with your estate planning lawyer about how to keep an estate out of the probate process. These include:

• Proper titling, including joint tenancy with rights of survivorship or tenancy by the entirety.
• Using certain accounts that allow for beneficiaries to be designated, such as a life insurance policy.
• Gifting assets while you are still alive.
• Establishing a living trust that you can make edits to over the course of your life.
• Using a life estate.

No matter what type of estate plan you intend to pursue, you should consult with a lawyer about how to handle this situation and what makes the most sense for you and your loved ones.  No matter your reasoning for wanting to keep your estate private, but it needs to be accomplished with a lawyer’s help.

Avoiding probate might not seem like something that benefits you directly, but during a time when your loved ones are already grieving and attempting to move on from the loss of someone they care about, having a thoroughly established estate plan means one less thing for them to worry about, enabling beneficiaries to receive assets sooner rather than later and minimizing the chances for a conflict or dispute around your estate planning intentions.