Category Archives: Probate
Collecting Outstanding Debts During Probate
The only thing more annoying than debt is all the picky rules that relate to seeking payment of debts. Debt collectors can contact you on social media, but only if the messages are not visible to others in your contacts and only if the debt collectors are transparent about their purposes; by this logic,… Read More »
Administering an Insolvent Estate During Probate
Estate planning lawyers often advise clients not to outlive their savings, but short of assembling a daredevil bucket list and going through it in ascending order of danger, it is often difficult to predict the relative longevity of your body and your cash flow. Unexpected illnesses and injuries can happen to anyone, but financial… Read More »
Probate for Small Estates
The best thing about probate is that you will be dead when it happens, so you will not be the one who has to deal with the stress. Being the personal representative of an estate in probate court is months of tedious paperwork, under the watchful eye of creditors, grief-stricken relatives, and employees of… Read More »
What Personal Representatives of Estates Should Know About Probate for Snowbirds
So, your parents just told you that they plan to designate you as personal representative of your estate. You will have a chance to talk to them about their estate plan in more detail soon, because they are just about to drive back to Maryland from Florida, where they have just finished spending the… Read More »
Estate Inventory During Maryland Probate
Your work as the personal representative of a deceased family member’s estate is probably not as difficult as you fear it will be, but it still requires organizational skills and a considerable investment of time. You probably will not have to deal with disputes about undue influence or long-lost distant relatives coming out of… Read More »
Are Handwritten Wills Valid In Maryland Probate Court?
Your parents can tell you about a time when typing documents was only for special occasions. Perhaps they used to handwrite most of their homework assignments; for final term papers, they would handwrite a first draft, and then type the paper before bringing it to class on the last day. These days, only the… Read More »
Can Probate Really Be A Non-Event?
Probate is a slog for some estates for others. The wealthiest among us spend their golden years working on their estate plans, and they do it so well that, by the time the Grim Reaper shows up, most of the decedent’s assets have escaped into trusts and payable on death accounts, so that the… Read More »
Life Estate: You Can Inherit Your Spouse’s House, And So Can Your Stepchildren
It isn’t easy to be a stepparent, at least not in the beginning. If your stepchildren are young when you marry their parent, the time they spend at your house can be a nightmare, but at least you can avoid taking their animosity toward you personally; they have had to deal with a lot… Read More »
The Reluctant Personal Representative Of A Family Member’s Estate
Estate planning lawyers always advised people to name someone they trust as personal representative of their estate and to notify that person as soon as they write the will, if not sooner. The more the testator and the intended personal representative talk about the estate plan during the testator’s lifetime, the better. Losing a… Read More »
Physically Destroying A Will Is The Most Effective Way To Cancel It
If you reread documents that you wrote many years ago, whether they are personal letters written on paper or archived blog posts from the salad days of Geocities, you will probably immediately notice how much your ideas have changed; you may barely resemble the version of yourself that wrote those old texts. You don’t… Read More »
