Estates include instructions for how we want to be cared for in the hospital. Who we want to make decisions for us. And strategies for how we pay (or don't pay) our last rounds of medical bills. 

Many important things as we sail to the edge of the sea of life.

It’s the resentment that brutalizes most estates, and it doesn’t take much money.

$25k (a used car and a savings account) can toss an estate into full probate in Massachusetts. It’s $35k in Ohio, $50k in  Michigan, and $75k in Minnesota and Mississippi. $10k can doom your loved ones in Georgia. Eighteen months of hassle, headache, and all that money spent on someone else’s family...only to be angry in the end.

Prepping the middle class family is as important as the rich one. Maybe more because the Top 1% pay for attorneys and accountants...$18 billion a year by some reports.

Probate courts exist to transfer assets from the living to the dead and to manage issues around minors and incompetent adults. Estates are typically entered into probate court when

a) the value of a type of probatable assets exceeds the state-declared $ threshold,

b) potential heirs are contesting ownership, or

c) potential creditors are seeking compensation.

Probatable assets are defined by each state’s law and each court’s conventions.

Most broadly, every asset owned solely by the deceased is probatable. Real estate in another state must go through probate in that state.

These assets are typically NOT probatable:

• Any asset with a named, living, competent, adult joint owner (JTWROS and TBE)
• Life insurance with a named, living, competent, adult beneficiary
• Retirement accounts with a named... beneficiary
• Brokerage accounts with a named... Transfer on Death (TOD) beneficiary
• Banking accounts with a named... Pay on Death (POD) beneficiary
• Any land, home, car, boat, or motorcycle with a legal deed that names another living, competent, adult person
• Any personal item that is already in the physical possession of another person or entity

The American Bar Association states that “most probate proceedings are neither expensive or prolonged.” From the perspective of a profession that gets paid $400 per hour for proceedings that take years, the ABA is correct. 

Americans rebelled in the 1960s against the archaic, slow, and expensive probate process, and they did not win that war. Please read Estate: To My Once Darling Child to better understand. It’s a slow-burn story, “oddly enjoyable” according to Kirkus Reviews and awarded a rare GET IT!

Most everything about the probate process feels awful:

1) An awful time. The process begins hours after our loved one dies.

2) A long time. Courts are busy. Simple probate takes 3 to 6 months. Full probate takes months more, until the final court proceeding after federal taxes have been filed and confirmed. Full probate takes 15 to 30 months. Many years is common.

3) A tedious time. Every task requires multiple steps, and there are so...many...tasks...to wind down a life.

4) An expensive time. The fees set by most probate courts are rarely overwhelming, but the sum total of the court fees, notary fees, postal fees, attorney fees, accounting fees, burial fees, and the expenses to clean up a life take away the moneys that should care for you.

Estate: The Golden Rules shares the two golden rules. Estate: To My Once Darling Child answers indirectly, through a story. Please read whichever makes sense for you and share.