Have you ever wondered how you can structure your financial and property affairs so your family can avoid the legal and financial hassles of a lengthy probate after you die?
So if you're like most, you might mistakingly think that a Will means that you avoid probate.
Unfortunately, you're wrong.
What a Will does is provide written instructions to a probate judge about who you want to inherit any of your assets that need to be probated.
So now you're probably wondering what assets would need to be probated.
It's simple: any assets, property or accounts that are owned by you alone with no beneficiary associated with them.
Assets owned jointly pass automatically to the surviving co-owner upon death.
Accounts with a beneficiary such as life insurance, annuities, retirement, even bank accounts pass to the named beneficiary upon death.
Assets owned by a trust continue to be owned by the trust upon death.
So if you have a Will but all of your assets are either owned jointly or by a trust or have beneficiaries associated with them, then no probate is needed and the Will doesn't come into play.
Bottom Line: Whether your estate needs to be probated has nothing to do with whether or not you have a Will, but rather how your assets are owned and whether you have beneficiaries for those assets.