We have a Revocable Trust and have only two adult children. Everything is set up and should be no problem for our children to handle.
But after reading your post I was thinking back to my own parents. At the same time, my parents had their wills written and placed in their home safe. Only a few years ago my mother died first. A massive brain aneurysm.
Shortly thereafter my Dad sold their property and we had him move into our home. He couldn’t live alone. So he had his own banking and all other accounts stashed away in his safe. Life was a little tedious for us but my dad loved the farm life. Actually he helped working around and about.
Back to wills.
When Dad died, his estate was very easy to handle. I was the Executor with only my sister. His original will was still effective. No probate was needed.
I quickly closed accounts and split my Dad’s funds equally between my sister and myself. No one watching over my shoulders. My sister and I had no problems.
Something can be handled easily or folks can make a bigger issue of it than necessary…
What year was that? Laws in CA changed in '90. Not sure how much they changed but it might have been different when you did it.
But generally the 12-18 months figure quoted is an ‘average’ and likely includes sale of real estate property and waiting for creditors to file claims… So its not just the time the laywers or gvt. take to push paper but also potentially longer the time it takes to close on a house sale. If theres a straight forward estate with no large assets to sell and no creditors then it ought to be much faster.
Also we’re talking ‘average’ on a probate. So maybe for every 5 easier estates with jsut a hosue to sell that take 6-12 months theres a big estate with lots of creditors, a business to sell and real property that takes 4 years to completely close.
I apologize for any confusion my earlier post might have created.
At time of my father’s death my sister was, indeed, a California resident. But dad was not. And his will was not probated, nor was his estate settled, beneath California law. Sorry, but I prefer not revealing the state wherein his estate was actually settled.
All I was saying earlier was it had not prior occurred to me that my sister could have been taken by surprise by the quick estate settlement since these things apparently take longer in California where she was then living.
Ah, ok gotcha. I’d read it that both were in CA in the context.
Also what I said about how long it can take is probably common for many states not just CA. States often take time to give creditors notice with a few months minimum and then it takes time to settle the same of property.
yes. Your heirs cans use small estate affadavit if your estate is smaller than that number. Making all your accounts POD accomplishes that. Your vehicle would be the only thing in your estate plus any accounts you forgot to put a POD on. You might want to intentionally leave one account not POD so that it can be used to pay your final bills.
For retirement accounts the only thing you can and should do is name the beneficiaries.
I don’t know if that is sufficient for non-retirement accounts. I did read somewhere else (besides glitch’s post here) that a POD/TOD avoids probate. That’s not the same as naming a beneficiary. So if you name beneficiaries in retirement accounts and add POD/TOD on enough non-retirement accounts, the rest of your assets could end up below the threshold and help avoid probate.
A few other things covered by estate planning include power of attorney (financial and medical) and advance medical directive. Cause a will does not kick in if you’re still kicking. Something to consider.
Do you have life insurance? The only thing I know about that is you should not name anyone < 18 as a beneficiary (primary or contingent), because they won’t be able to receive it. A trust should be named beneficiary of life insurance.
IIRC they can’t receive it at all, because having it controlled by the guardian until they reach 18 means it has to go to some special account which doesn’t belong to them, but the insured asked for the child to be the beneficiary, not some account that is not theirs, so, no soup for you. Or something like that.
This is what trusts are for. (reply related to minors-as-beneficiaries)
To OP – if your primary inheritors are adults, then simply naming the individuals as beneficiaries and POD/TOD on all accounts will pretty much take care of EVERYTHING in your estate that is non-real-estate.
If your primary inheritors are children, either you should consider a trust for the estate itself, or if it is just one or two kids, for a few thousand dollars you can get individual trusts established for each of them that can then be named as the direct beneficiaries.
The only place that path is problematic is with relation to life insurance which, IIRC, loses some of its ability to bypass estate tax rules if it doesn’t pay directly to individuals. But that is a problem I’m sure we all hope to have, rather than one most of us will ever realistically encounter
Ha! Sure, since most of us probably have term policies.
The life insurance to avoid estate taxes was more of a whole life policy thing from the days of MUCH lower estate tax thresholds so is pretty much moot nowadays anyway.
Some bank accounts may not have a way to set a POD recipient/beneficiary. Checking and Savings accounts rarely have that option. But it’s not a big deal if the combined balance of these accounts is small enough to bypass probate. Also make sure to add the fair market value of cars, boats, valuables in your home, etc… to make sure it stays below the probate threshold in your state.
For 401k and brokerage accounts, designating a POD/beneficiary should be available and sufficient for bypassing probate.
But obviously it will not be sufficient if you have particular wants about how your estate is to be distributed, how expenses related to burial and settling of the estate will be handled, etc. For that, at the very least, you will need a will.
After our move from WA to NC, it’s high time for us to revisit and update everything. I’m planning on a drafting a trust/will combo with the assistance of Willmaker 2024, then having a lawyer review.
Can’t find any documentation anywhere confirming exactly what the “Premium” version of Willmaker (sold at Costco) includes vs. the “plus” version sold direct. Appears at first glance that the former grafts 20 ebooks onto the latter version, but I’m not sure.
The SS has a small death benefit. A major purpose is to make sure they learn of a death (it gets claimed, often by a funeral home), and can stop payments. I think this becomes public knowledge quickly and is used by credit card companies to can cards and not be stuck by frauds.
A will also covers unexpected items you did not know you had. You are killed by a drunk driver and there is a million dollar payment. If children exist saying who you want to have custody is usually honored and avoids paper work and some judge having to decide.
I had looked at it for the 2021 version and that seemed to me to be the only difference. We went with the Premier version since it was cheaper than directly through Nolo.
As far as lawyer fees, I’d disagree. They’ll either bill you as a package for setting up your will and trusts, or bill you by the hour. All costs depend on complexity. If you have a very simple will and trust setup, you probably don’t even need a lawyer. Software can handle it easily but may require you to read (gasp) on some topics.
If it’s more complicated, package could easily run you $1000-1500. Lawyer will interview you, ask you for details and gather all the relevant information the software would ask you about, query you about options you’d prefer, etc… basically hold your hand through the process. They use software to assist them as well. It’s not hard - for most estates - but it’s rather time consuming. They’ll do much of the stuff you could do yourself, except bill you $300-500/hr for it.
On the other hand, for $100 or so (sometimes cheaper if you look at previous year versions - law does not change that much for estates in 2-3 years) the software basically guides you through 99% of the usual questions and options. You spend the time filling it in instead of the lawyer. Then the lawyer will spend maybe an hour reviewing it.
In 2021, our total cost for will, living trust, durable power of attorney, health care directives, and TOD deeds was $350. Lawyer quoted us $1200 for the whole thing if he did it from scratch.
P.S.: The other advantage of doing it via software first is you still own the software afterwards. If I had to redo our estate docs now, I’d be tempted to reuse the 2019 software. Or if you realize you need another document, you still have the software to do it. Alternatively, once done, you could also resell the software on ebay to recoup a good fraction of that cost.
