If the individual dies with assets in his or her name alone, then those assets generally need to be probated. Regarding the question of probate, first of all you have to understand that a trust only helps a person's estate avoid probate if the trust in fact owns that persons assets at his or her death. This is in line with what you said your attorney's reasons were for wanting to meet with you. The purpose of this meeting is two-fold (1) to determine whether a probate estate needs to be opened on behalf of that deceased client's estate and (2) to determine whether the surviving spouse's estate planning documents should be updated. What I can tell you is that I always try to meet with the surviving spouse of a deceased client relatively soon after the deceased client's death. I cannot tell you whether you are overreacting based on the information you provided me. Am I overreacting? What was the purpose of setting up our trust five years ago when my husband's estate has to be probated anyway? I look forward to your response. I am very upset by all of this and I feel that I have been taken advantage of. That was three weeks ago and I have no intention of calling him back. Then when he told me what all of this would cost, I told him I would think about it and get back to him. I figured this was a routine meeting and was shocked to find out that not only did the attorney aggressively recommend that I redo all of my estate planning documents, but that a probate would be required of my husband's estate. He assured us that what we were doing with our documents would address those concerns.Ī few months back my husband passed away, and about a month later, I received a letter from that same lawyer asking me to contact his office to set up a time to meet to review our estate planning file and to make sure no probate estate had to be opened on my husband's behalf. Our main concerns, which were expressed to the attorney at that time, was that neither one of us wanted any hassles when the first one of us died and we certainly did not want to deal with probate. The meetings and the documents were quite comprehensive, and the cost was not cheap. The documents we had prepared included wills, financial power of attorneys, health care power of attorneys, living wills and a joint trust. I am writing to you because I know you have no vested financial interest in how you respond to my question.įive years ago my husband and I completed our estate planning with a local attorney.
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