How long does probate take?
Attorney Tom Olsen: Probate comes into play when somebody passes away with an asset in their name only. Most common example of that are calls that we get every day where somebody says, ''Hey, my mom passed away. The only thing she owned was her home.'' Where we got to break the news to them it's going to require a probate process to get that home out of mom's name and into the names of the kids. Tell us a little bit about how that probate process works.
Attorney Alexis Merrill: The probate process works by-- The first thing we do is get the information of who's going to be the personal representative, and then we have them sign all the initial probate pleadings that we need to file with the court. Then we get from the judge a document called letters of administration, which is a very important document for the personal representative so they can conduct business on behalf of the estate. Then we go through a three-month creditor period required by Florida law, and then we begin to close the estate.
Attorney Tom Olsen: I've been doing probate my entire career, over 40 years, and used to be probate might take three months, four months to get it done. I have been learning from our probate department to not quote that amount of time to clients anymore because things have definitely slowed down as far as probates go now. What is the typical timeframe to get a probate done?
Attorney Alexis Merrill: We typically tell people to expect around six months.
Attorney Tom Olsen: It's not that we're slowing the process down. The fact of the matter is is that a lot of what we do depends on what the judge's timing is, whether they're available, whether on vacation, how soon we can get in front of a judge to get certain probate pleadings signed.
Attorney Alexis Merrill: Exactly. A lot of what we do we are at the mercy of the court system. We do our best to move as quickly as possible, but ultimately a lot of those things are out of our control.
Attorney Tom Olsen: The probate process start to finish might be six months, but to get somebody appointed as the executor, get them letters of administration, that's going to be something substantially shorter; a matter of 30 days. Is that what we're quoting typically these days?
Attorney Alexis Merrill: 30 days, I would say, is a good timeframe.
Attorney Tom Olsen: Once they have the letters of administration, that will give our executor access to the bank accounts and the cash.
Attorney Alexis Merrill: Exactly.
Attorney Tom Olsen: Then as well, if mom passed away with a home, we can sell the home during the probate process. We don't have to wait till the end of the six months to get it sold.
Attorney Alexis Merrill: Exactly. Then what we do is in that timeframe we help the personal representative through each step and each asset that needs to be distributed because it's confusing and people have questions. We're here to help walk that person through each step because they're of course concerned about doing it in the right way.
Attorney Tom Olsen: I tell clients that it is very complicated, and we're going to hold their hand and we're going to walk them through it. I also tell them that we bite it off in little baby chunks. If you told an executor what they're going to be going through for the next six months they would be completely overwhelmed, so we take little baby steps, little steps here and there to do the process.
Attorney Alexis Merrill: That's exactly what we do. What I help people with is literally biting off those little chunks at a time. With what we need to take care of in a specific estate, we do one thing at a time.
Attorney Tom Olsen: Some of the assets that we handle can be quite complicated. As mom and dad passed away with stock in their name, doing stock transfers, it's a big deal.
Attorney Alexis Merrill: It is a big deal. It just requires more time and then more effort on the personal representative to get certain things they need to transfer that stock.
[00:03:35] [END OF AUDIO]