Avoiding probate, types of probate and letters of administration

Attorney Tom Olsen: My guest today is Attorney Alexis Merrill. Alexis, welcome back to the show.

Attorney Alexis Richards: Thanks for having me, Tom.

Tom: You're in our probate department, Alexis, and I'm just curious about how often when you're telling people, somebody's talking to you and say, "Oh, mom and dad has passed away. They own a home, they own a bank account," and you tell them, well, it's going to require probate to get those assets out of their name and into the name of the kids. How many times they might talk to you and say, "Oh, I thought it was automatic that those things passed to me."

Alexis: That might be almost every person I talked to, very high percentage.

Tom: People are surprised about that?

Alexis: Yes.

Tom: A lot might say, "Well, they had a will. That will says when they die, everything goes to me. Isn't that automatic?"

Alexis: Unfortunately, I break the bad news that that's not the case.

Tom: Now here at the Olsen Law Group, we're all about helping people to avoid probate, but that requires some effort on behalf of the client. It requires some work on behalf of Olsen Law Group to get that done for you people want to avoid probate because it's expensive and it takes a long time, and if you come and get your estate planning done with Olsen Law Group, we're going to make sure that happens for you.

Alexis: Exactly. A lot of times what I do is the people that I work with in probate, I tell them to look at it as a positive experience where it becomes educational for them. Then they know what to avoid in the future, and a lot of times then we will do estate planning for them because they say, "I don't want to do this again."

Tom: I think that is so neat. That one of the children comes to you and says, "Mom and dad have passed away. We need to do a probate for mom and dad," and you do that work for them. Then that client turns around and says, "I'm going to avoid this when I pass away," and let you do their estate planning for them.

Alexis: That happens pretty often.

Tom: And make things simple, easy, inexpensive for their children when they pass away. Alexis, tell us, what are the typical kinds of probates that you're doing?

Alexis: The most common type of probate that we do is what people think of as like a traditional probate where we get letters of administration and the person liquidates assets, we help them transfer the home and we do the full probate. There are also another type of probate that we do called summary administrations. I do quite a few of those. Those are just a little bit more specific circumstances. More people fall under the full administration category.

Tom: We're talking the most typical type of probate here is a full administration. How long does something like that take typically?

Alexis: Well, more common around 8 to 12 months.

Tom: When you do a full administration, somebody is appointed as the executor of the estate and that somebody is then given what's called letters of administration. Tell us about letters of administration.

Alexis: Letters of administration is a document that is signed by the judge that appoints the person to take care of things on behalf of the estate, opening up a bank account, liquidating assets. That one person is the go-to for conducting the estate.

Tom: People call our office on a daily basis and said, "Yes, mom had a bank account and the bank said I need letters-letters of administration."

Alexis: They think I just need a letter.

Tom: They call us expecting that we can write a letter and they're going to get access to the bank account. When you hear that letters, we know letters of administration, full probate, 8 to 12 months.

Alexis: Then they're shocked when they find out that it's a document that's signed by a judge, not a letter you get in the mail.

Tom: All right, folks.

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