Some very good reasons to avoid probate

Attorney Tom Olsen: Here at Olsen Law Group, is we're all about helping people to avoid probate. Holley, why do people want to avoid probate?

Attorney Holley Knapik: Probate is expensive and time consuming. It's something that is left to the loved ones to deal with when really, they should be dealing with the passing of their mother, their father, their relative, and not the hassles of going through probate, dealing with the court and paying fees.

Attorney Tom: Well, let's just give a small example of that, and let's just say that mom passes away and mom's got $50,000 in a bank account in mom's name only. If we go through probate to get access to that $50,000, how long is it going to take the kids to get that money?

Attorney Holley: Oh, it's going to take anywhere from 6 months to a year and we're talking, you're paying, Florida statute says up to 3% for attorneys and up to 3% of the value run through probate for a personal representative. That's 6% of that $50,000. That's gone, right off the top.

Attorney Tom: If mom had made that bank account's POD, payable on death to the kids, how long would it take the kids to get that money?

Attorney Holley: As long as it would take them to receive mom's death certificate and get it to the bank. Some banks take a couple of weeks. There's some processing involved, but it's a lot less stressful and it's so much easier.

Attorney Tom: Yes. Usually, you can get somebody's death certificate within about 10 working days of the date of death. You take that death certificate down to the bank where mom made a bank account POD for their kids, show them the death certificate and it's done. One of the things I like about it is that if mom makes the bank account POD, payable on death to all three kids, it is not the first child that gets down to the bank with the death certificate gets all the money.

Attorney Holley: Right.

Attorney Tom: Okay. Any one of those kids can show the death certificate to the bank and the bank's going to write three separate checks to three separate kids.

Attorney Holley: Absolutely. I actually got that question recently.

Attorney Tom: The beauty of that is that it just all about helping people to avoid probate and avoiding probate is going to help the kids from arguing with each other.

Attorney Holley: In-fighting.

Attorney Tom: When you make your bank accounts, POD for three kids and the bank writes 3 equal cheques to the 3 kids, no room to argue there.

Attorney Holley: None, it's done.

Attorney Tom: Yes. If on the other side, if that bank account's got to go through probate and we just talked about, it takes a long time, it's expensive, but what happens, is you got one child who's the executor, person representative of the estate. That one child is really calling the shots and dictating the timeline.

Attorney Holley: You're right.

Attorney Tom: What I'm saying is that over my 40 years of law practice, I've gotten so many phone calls and they go like this, "Tom, my mom has passed away. My mom made my sister as the executor of the estate. Mom's been dead for a year. Nothing's happening. I'm not getting any of my money. What am I going to do?"

Well, sisters not on the ball or sister's taking this opportunity to control the purse strings of mom's money and saying, "This is how I'm going to get you. I'm going to jab you, my brothers and sisters and jab you by just make you- I'm going to make you wait on that money for no good reason other than I want to."

Attorney Holley: Yes, exactly.

Attorney Tom: That's what we're trying to avoid.

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