Avoiding Probate

Avoiding probate is a strategy that a wise and experienced estate planning lawyer can help you with. But in some instances, probate actually provides protections for you, protections from creditors. Certain assets that are exempt if you go through probate—that can be provided to a spouse or to a minor or special needs child. You can also get some releases from the probate process. A judge can actually exclude some creditors from the process by going through the probate process. The failure to plan in this regard and expect that everything is gonna go the way Uncle Harry or Aunt Sally’s will did in another jurisdiction in another century, is a serious mistake. To try to avoid probate with great counsel may be possible. To try to avoid it by ignoring your mortality or the fact that these things are gonna have to be dealt with, can be a fatal error to your finances.