Probate is the court-supervised process of settling a decedent’s estate and distributing his or her property to heirs.All wills go through probate. Generally, in order to probate a will, the document is filed with the probate court, which appoints a personal representative to handle the estate’s affairs. The duties of the personal representative include paying estate debts, taxes, and fees; gathering the decedent’s assets; and eventually distributing the decedent’s assets to heirs according to the will.
The two main reasons to avoid probate are the time and money it can take to complete.
Probate is a court process that takes a long time. While an estate is in probate, the heirs will not see anything in the form of inheritance. The probate process can take even longer if the will or any provisions in it are contested. The court already takes a portion of the value of the estate to cover probate fees, but if a probate attorney also gets involved, you are looking at even more expenses, which only further cut into the heirs’ inheritance.
In addition, probate is a public process, which means all proceedings become part of the public record and anyone can go, search, and find information about the distribution of an estate’s assets—including their value and to whom they have been given.