Hi, Today we are talking to you about the process of avoiding probate court at your death. Most people do not think about avoiding probate court at their death. Hope you read this complete article and share it on social media.
Probate Proceeding
They have a will the will is what’s read by the probate court judge in a probate proceeding. The will describes who’s going to get your assets at the time of death.
But those solely refer to your probate assets. Most people have assets that go outside of probate court they have life insurance.
It goes to the beneficiary they need when they purchase the life insurance policy.
Usually, they’re spouse if living otherwise their kids and they do the same thing on an IRA. They name a beneficiary to take the proceeds from the IRA at the time of their death.
Also, you can do that same thing when you’re a widow and you have a bank account. In Wisconsin, you can fill out a form at the bank that says who gets this account.
Beneficiary Account
It doesn’t need to be in joint with your children in fact it shouldn’t be in joint with your children. It simply should have a payable-on-death beneficiary form filled out of the bank.
So that your children can walk in and at your death get the money in that checking account or savings account.
So very important to have that on your account and it’s a very simplified way to get money transferred from your account to your children at the time of death.
That’s called payable on death beneficiary account.
Investments at Your Brokerage Firm
You can do something similar to your brokerage account. Where you have your investments at your brokerage firm.
TOD Form
They have a form you can fill out. That form in Wisconsin is called a transfer on death form or TOD Form (transfer on death).
POD Form
Very similar in operation to the POD Form (payable-on-death). That would relate to accounts and financial institutions.
So those are ways to avoid probate. Joint is an excellent way to Avoiding Probate between a husband and a wife.
But not a good way to avoid probate between a mother and a child.
These are some very simplified ways to avoid the probate process.
There are more complex ways to avoid probate as well and those you are going to need lawyers assistance to help you through those.
Why do I want to Avoiding Probate Court
We call that how are we going to avoid probate on a real estate and again the question should be why do I want to avoid probate.
The answer is because going through a probate court takes time for your loved ones. It could be up to 10, 20, 30, 40 hours of their time.
It takes generally an entire year from beginning to end to wrap up probate. So again your children may not want to take that time.
They may not also want to go through the expense of going through probate. It can be very expensive depending on what needs to be done.
Avoiding the Probate process
So the solution is to plan ahead so that you can avoid the probate process. There are more sophisticated ways to do it.
That has a little bit more expense involved. Then simply using beneficiary designations on all of your accounts and all your assets.
The more sophisticated way could be using a trust that you set up during a lifetime and again that certainly would some legal advice to do that.
