06/04/2026
What is probate?
Probate is the court supervised process of administering a deceased person's estate.
When you die, you leave behind a legal ghost that is your estate.
You have to pay the final cable bill, among other things, and your estate does that.
You need a living person to be in charge of your estate, that is your Personal Representative.
They are nominated by you in your will and appointed by the court after they file a petition.
They publish notice in the paper, notify known creditors, pay bills, claims, creditors, etc.
They manage assets, liquidate, and settle your affairs before distributing to your beneficiaries/heirs.
The fact is that they are usually amateurs, not professionals, and they can't do any of that without an attorney and their staff holding their hand.
That's why it's expensive.
Add even a single grain of sand into the machine and the costs go through the roof.
No one can promise you what will happen with your affairs when you die, but there are ways to make this more efficient from a cost and hassle standpoint.
I've described here a bread and butter probate, mentioned the high cost of minimal wrinkles, but...
Then there is the unmitigated dumpster fire.
The ones where the legal spend is $100,000+ just to figure out which will to probate.
I've been apart of all kinds of these, including the $100,000 and counting cases.
There is no boiler plate document, their is no one size fits all.
Let's talk sometime.
Because, beyond avoiding bad things, there are incredible things we can do with the tool available to us for your family.
