Probate
From LegalLanding
Probate is the legal process of administering the estate of a deceased person by resolving all claims and distributing the deceased person's property under the valid will. A probate court decides the validity of a testator's will. A probate interprets the instructions of the deceased, decides the executor as the personal representative of the estate, and adjudicates the interests of heirs and other parties who may have claims against the estate.
In any jurisdictions in the U.S. that recognize a married couple's property as a tenancy by the entirety, if a person dies intestate, the portion of his/her estate so titled passes to a surviving spouse without a probate.
If the estate is not automatically devised to the surviving spouse in this manner or through a joint tenancy, and is not held within a trust, it is necessary to "probate the estate", whether or not the decedent had a valid will. A court having jurisdiction of the decedent's estate (a probate court) supervises probate, to administer the disposition of the decedent's property according to the law of the jurisdiction and the decedent's intent as manifested in his testamentary instrument. There are exceptions for smaller estates.
If the decedent died without a will, known as intestacy, the estate will be distributed according to the laws of the state where the decedent resided or held by the court.[4] If the decedent died with a will, the will usually names an executor (personal representative), a person tasked with carrying out the instructions laid out in the will. The executor marshals the decedent's assets. If there is no will, or if the will does not name an executor, the probate court can appoint one. Traditionally, the representative of an intestate estate is called an administrator. If the decedent died with a will, but only a copy of the will can be located, many states will allow the copy to be probated, subject to the rebuttable presumption that the testator destroyed the will before death.
In some cases, where the person named as executor cannot administer the probate, or wishes to have someone else do so, another person will be named as administrator. An executor or an administrator may receive compensation for his service.
The probate court may require that the executor provide a fidelity bond, an insurance policy in favor of the estate to protect against possible abuse by the executor.
The representative of a testate estate who is someone other than the executor named in the will is an administrator with the will annexed, or administrator c.t.a. (from the Latin cum testamento annexo.) The generic term for executors or administrators is personal representative.
Steps of probate
Some of the decedent's property may never enter probate because it passes to another person contractually, such as the death proceeds of an insurance policy insuring the decedent or bank or retirement account that names a beneficiary or is owned as "payable on death", and property (sometimes a bank or brokerage account) legally held as "jointly owned with right of survivorship".
Property held in a revocable or irrevocable trust created during the grantor's lifetime also avoids probate. In these cases in the U.S. no court action is involved and the property is distributed privately, subject to estate taxes.
After opening the probate case with the court, the personal representative inventories and collects the decedent's property. Next, he pays any debts and taxes, including estate tax in the United States, if the estate is taxable at the federal or state level, or the Pennsylvania inheritance tax. Finally, he distributes the remaining property to the beneficiaries, either as instructed in the will, or under the intestacy laws of the state.
A party may challenge any aspect of the probate administration, such as a direct challenge to the validity of the will, known as a will contest, a challenge to the status of the person serving as personal representative, a challenge as to the identity of the heirs, and a challenge to whether the personal representative is properly administering the estate. Issues of paternity can be disputed among the potential heirs in intestate estates, especially with the advent of inexpensive DNA profiling techniques. In some situations, however, even biological heirs can be denied their inheritance rights, while non-biological heirs can be granted inheritance rights.
The personal representative must understand and abide by the fiduciary duties, such as a duty to keep money in interest bearing account and to treat all beneficiaries equally. Not complying with the fiduciary duties may allow interested persons to petition for the removal of the personal representative and hold the personal representative liable for any harm to the estate.
Avoiding probate
Probate generally lasts several months, and often over a year before all the property is distributed, and incurs substantial court and attorney costs. One of the many ways to avoid probate is to execute a living trust. A settlor, or a creator of a trust, transfers ownership of his real property from himself to a trust which he controls and can revise (except in the case of an irrevocable trust.) Upon death, the persons named as beneficiaries in the trust acquire ownership of the property of the trust. Since a probate is a public process, a living trust shields private affairs of the deceased and the heirs from public scrutiny and helps the estate avoid estate tax.
Probate can also be avoided by setting up P.O.D (paid on death) designations on bank accounts and T.O.D (transfer on death) on brokerage accounts, 401ks and IRAs that pass automatically to designated beneficiaries.
As for real estate, a testator must add a named beneficiary to a deed by executing a life estate deed. The property can be passed several generations.
The key to avoiding probate is having named beneficiaries on all assets, as is the case for life insurance. A common error in life insurance is naming the insured's estate as the contingent beneficiary. Doing so will place the proceeds from that policy into probate.
Life insurance, savings accounts, and joint tenancies with the right of survivorship are testamentary substitutes to avoid probate.
A Segregated fund is a specific type of investment vehicle that is held inside a life insurance company. While segregated funds are not life insurance policies, and thus do not have a death benefit, they can be valuable substitutes for mutual funds held at a bank or other financial institution, due to the ability within them to designate a beneficiary, and thus bypass the estate, and probate.
Avoiding probate does not eliminate estate taxes. Under the federal estate tax law as modified, included in the definition of a taxable estate are property held in a living trust, life insurance, payable on death or transfer on death financial instruments, and other property a party receives upon decease of the decedent.
Inter vivos trusts can reduce estate taxes if they are properly structured, but that is not related to the avoidance of probate. Generally, to avoid an estate tax, a person must give it away irrevocably or leave it to a qualified charity. However, the use of credit shelter trusts (AB trusts) can allow a married couple to preserve both unified credits, allowing up to twice the total estate to pass to heirs without estate tax. It may reduce or eliminate the tax.