Category Archives: Probate
Payment for the Personal Representative of an Estate
Most of the time, the rewards for the services you perform for your family are not financial ones. Sometimes it is easy to doubt that there are any rewards at all. When you were young, your parents spat out disapproval at anything you did; you got the same response whether you tried to please… Read More »
Important Probate Deadlines
Your most impressive feats of adulting do not take place until the people who always thought that you were useless were gone. By the time you transported your children to multiple extracurricular activities while also keeping up with all your responsibilities at work, your parents were no longer healthy enough to notice. Your children… Read More »
Who Needs Probate Lawyers?
In every probate case, the court appoints someone as personal representative of the estate. If the decedent wrote a will, the court appoints the person that the testator listed as personal representative. If there is no will, then the court usually appoints the person who petitioned the court to open the estate for probate…. Read More »
Paying Debts During Probate
Keeping up with payments on your own debts is hard enough. How do you assume responsibility for someone else’s debts, especially when that person is no longer around to fill in missing details about his or her financial situation? This is what the personal representative of the estate must do in every probate case…. Read More »
Disclaiming an Inheritance
Filmmakers can depict a disconnect between a character’s surroundings and his or her emotions by superimposing a soundtrack that doesn’t match the scene’s visuals. For example, if the protagonist is lonely at a dance party, the film can show the room full of partygoers dancing to energetic music and then focus on the protagonist… Read More »
Are Non-Probate Assets Overrated?
Probate is an unpleasant reminder that there is no such thing as a free lunch. You know how, in order to get your income tax refund, you must complete the process of filing your income tax returns, and even when you do that, the refund you receive is a lot less than you were… Read More »
The Reluctant Personal Representative
If someone is overjoyed at the thought of being the personal representative of a deceased person’s estate, it is hard not to wonder whether something is amiss. The best-case scenario is that the enthusiastic personal representative is a probate lawyer who loves his job because his personal life is so dismal that work is… Read More »
Beware of Posthumous Financial Crime
Financial abuse of the elderly is common, but this does not make it any less of an ordeal for the elderly people targeted by the abuse or for the family members who love them and worry about them. If you acted as a caregiver to a family member in his or her old age,… Read More »
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 »
