A married couple wants to avoid probate

Kim: Question, if you are leaving everything to a surviving spouse and you own everything in common, your home, your vehicles, and all of your possessions, is probate necessary?

Attorney Tom Olsen: The answer is no, Kim. Most married couples own everything jointly. That means when one of them passes away, the survivor automatically owns it all. No probate required. Probate would come into play when a second of them passes away or if they both happen to die in a common accident. Kim, did that answer your question for you?

Kim: Yes. May I ask a follow-up question on that?

Tom: Go ahead. Of course.

Kim: Absolutely. Thank you. In that situation, what do you do when the person passes away? Do you have to put the deceased person's will on file with the county or [unintelligible 00:01:03] court?

Tom: Correct. If your husband passed away, Kim, we've already determined that there's no probate required. However, the law still requires that you take his original will and you put it on deposit with a probate court in whatever county that you guys live in. The reason for that is, today, we think there's no probate required, but 15 years ago, all of a sudden, an asset pops up that was in your husband's name, nobody knew about it, now, all of a sudden, probate is required. Everybody will know exactly where to find the will, Kim.

Kim: Okay. Well, I appreciate your help on that.

Tom: Kim, and by the way, a couple of other things, just we're talking about spouse passing away. Number one, when your spouse passes away, the surviving spouse is entitled to an additional widow's exemption for real estate tax savings purposes. If your spouse has passed away, you contact your property appraiser in whatever county you live in, provide them with a copy of your spouse's death certificate, and they'll give you an additional $500 real estate tax exemption. Also, if you're a surviving spouse, Social Security will give you a $200 burial benefit for whatever it's worth, Kim, but thank you for bringing that to our attention.

Kim: Thank you so much for your answer.

Attorney Robert Hidock: Tom, wouldn't you advise Kim that since there are joint accounts that they would want to put if they have kids, their kid's beneficiaries on every single account, and then a Lady Bird Deed on the home, so her family will never have to worry about probate?

Tom: Exactly, Kim. We were just talking about avoiding probate when the first of you passes away, but we really should start thinking about how do we avoid probate when a second of you passes away, or if you both happen to die in a common accident. Robert, over the years, I've had married couples say, "Hey, we'll just wait till one of us passes away and then the survivor will come in and see you about avoiding probate." That's not a good plan.

Robert: No.

Tom: No, because things happen. Kim, as far as avoiding probate, we've got all kinds of great tools to help you avoid probate. Here at the Olsen Law Group, we're all about helping people to avoid probate. As a matter of fact, we got a free booklet on easy ways to avoid probate. I do regular workshops on easy ways to avoid probate. Kim, we do offer a free initial consultation to talk to people about their estate planning and certainly, as part of that, in free initial consultation, we're going to be talking about easy ways to avoid probate as well. Kim, whether you want a booklet, whether you want to go to a workshop, whether you want to take us up on a free initial consultation, contact the Olsen Law Group next week and we'll be pleased to assist you. Let's go to--

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