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Probate
Probate, like Trust Administration, is occurring at a very difficult period of time because it is the result of a person’s death. We are mindful of this fact and we work collaboratively with our clients to provide them with the right amount of interaction with our expert professionals to administer the estate in a timely manner.
No matter how simple or complex the probate administration can be, we communicate regularly with our clients and provide achievable solutions on time and without surprise legal fees and costs.
Probate Administration occurs when a person dies without a trust, naming a beneficiary on a beneficiary designation form (such as an IRA, 401(k), or Life Insurance), and sum total of the assets are in excess of $150,000. Therefore, a person named as executor in a will, if one exists, or if not a relative, will file a Probate Petition to begin the court supervised process to administer the decedent’s estate.
Probate, unlike Trust Administration, can be a very confusing process. It is critical to retain an attorney that understands the mysterious rules and procedures of probate in addition to steering the administration away from the pitfalls and traps. Under normal circumstances, a probate can take between 18-24 months to complete for large estates (estates in excess of $10,000,000). For smaller estates the timeline is between 12 and 18 months. Our firm constantly outperforms industry norm in terms of completing probate administrations.