Skip Probate and do a Trust

When people are trying to make the decision of how best to handle their assets, they often believe all they need to do is create a will and that will be sufficient to handle all their assets. While it is true, a simple will does give instructions to your family and friends of what to do with your assets, it still requires them to go through the lengthy and expensive probate process in order to distribute your assets. This is something that can be skipped entirely and money can easily be saved if you were to establish what’s known as a trust.

If a decedent had a bank account that they didn’t share with anyone, the bank is very unlikely to release that money to anyone without a document bestowing authority on the person requesting the money, and thus removing the liability to the bank for handing over the money that belonged to the decedent. Another example is real estate transfers. If a property was held by a person that has passed away, there needs to be authority bestowed on the person attempting to deed the house to a new owner. There are, for the most part, only two documents that can give that level of authority, the Letters of Office and a Trust Document naming a person as Trustee.

If you don’t have a trust, then the people wanting to administer your estate and transfer your money likely will need to obtain the Letters of Office. Unfortunately, the only way to obtain the Letters of Office is to petition them from the Court, and the only way to petition them is to open probate. The letters are given to you by the Court and in exchange for granting you this authority and power, they require you to 1.) Have an attorney assisting you with the process, and 2.) sending out a 6 month notice to all creditors that the decedent has passed away and that they should come seeking their repayment if they have debts owed to them.

Having a trust allows your designated administrator, also known as your trustee, to skip the probate process and skip the need to alert creditors to your death. A trust gives the authority to your trustee that the letters of office give to an executor, except the trustee doesn’t need to go request this authority from the court as it’s already been bestowed through the trust document.

Many people believe a trust is only worth it when you have immense amounts of assets or real estate to transfer, this isn’t true, a trust lets you skip probate and that can be worth its weight in gold at almost any level of asset distribution.

If you have directions you want to leave behind for your assets and want to allow your heirs to skip the year long probate process, consider having the Law Office of Andrew Szocka draft a trust for you where you can lay out all your wishes for when you are no longer with us. If you would like to discuss having a trust made, please give us a call at 815-455-8430 or email us at info@Szocka.com