What is Probate?
Probate is the process of the court administrating a deceased person’s estate. What is usually involved in probate case is the determination of several key points including:
- Who is in charge of the estate – referred to as the Executor, Administrator or Personal Representative
- What assets belong to the person
- What assets can pass outside of Probate
- What assets must go through the Probate process
- Who are the beneficiaries of the Estate
- Who is entitled to receive the assets
- What assets each person or entity is receiving
- Any creditors of the Estate and the court ensuring that those creditors get paid including the State of California, department of health care services, and any tax entity
Do I absolutely need probate? Is this something that the court decides? What if there is no will?
It does not matter if you have a will or not because even if you have a will, you still may go through probate. Wills don’t avoid probate. Wills are designed to go through probate.
The way to determine whether you need probate is you determine if the decedent had assets that don’t have either a joint tenant attached to it or a beneficiary named. Assets totaling $100K or more with no joint tenants and no beneficiary assigned will need a full probate.
What if the assets fall below $100K?
If the assets fall below the $100K threshold, you can probably proceed through a small probate process which can be done by affidavit and does not require the courts.
