10/14/2026
You step out of a Tuesday meeting in Charlotte, your father's estate paperwork open on your phone.
He signed a will and a revocable living trust, and you thought that handled everything. The will names who gets what. It doesn't keep the estate out of probate court. The trust can generally do that, but only for property actually transferred into and titled in the trust's name. Step one: sign it. Step two: retitle the house, the brokerage account, and the savings account into the trust's name.
Skip step two, and anything still titled in his name alone may require probate, whatever the will states, unless it passes another way, such as a valid payable-on-death beneficiary designation or joint ownership with survivorship rights. Title and state law decide. Call us at (803) 274-1095 to check whether your family's trust actually holds what you think it does.
That's the gap worth closing before probate finds it for you.
