What are Few Ways to Avoid Probate?

What are ways that you can avoid probate? Hi, I'm Guy D. Martino.

I am a Northwest Indiana estate planning lawyer and I would like to answer that question for you today because it was recently asked of me. Well, the only thing that you have to worry about with probate is that at the time that you pass away, you have something that is titled in your name only. So, if you want to avoid probate, make sure there is nothing that is titled in your name only at your time of death.

And so, what do I mean? Make sure that you have your bank accounts and you have beneficiaries on your bank accounts. Make sure that you have beneficiaries on your retirement accounts.

Make sure that your beneficiaries are up to date on any life insurance policies, any annuities. Now, when it comes to property, if you do not want to go and do a trust, which the trust would be the titled owner, you can do something called a transfer on death deed. And a transfer on death deed says that the property is owned by me and at the time of my death I want to transfer the property to whomever you're going to transfer the property to.

The other way to make sure that you do not have to go through probate is a trustbased plan. Now a trust is typically you want to look at it like a box. The way that you put stuff into the trust is you title it into the trust.

So you can title it into the trust uh through a beneficiary designation or you can title it through into the trust at the time that you are living for instance. Uh you can have a bank account and you can title it when you're alive into the trust and so then it will be the trust's bank account even though you're going to manage the funds because you're going to be the initial trustee. On the other hand, you can have the trust as a beneficiary.

So when you pass away, then the money from the bank account gets titled in the trust through that beneficiary designation. Same thing uh with life insurance. You can have people outright as beneficiaries or you can have the trust as a beneficiary.

Now, with a home, if you want to go with a trustbased plan, it's best that the home is actually titled in the trust during your life. It just makes it a lot easier. So, at the time that you pass away, the successor trustee will do whatever it needs to do with the home.

So, there are many ways to avoid probate depending upon your needs, depending upon what you have, and depending upon how you want things to go. If you have any questions, you can always reach out to me. I am Guy D.

Martino.