Estate Planning and Probate

The estate planning process designates who will receive assets and handle responsibilities after a person dies. It also sets forth how to handle health and financial decisions when someone is incapacitated. Estate planning is essential for a variety of reasons:

• It provides guidance for those making medical and financial decisions when someone is incapacitated.
• After death, it ensures that assets are distributed in accordance with the wishes of the person who died. This can help avoid family disputes.
• It simplifies the probate process, making it faster and less costly.
• It can minimize estate taxes.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of completing the estate planning process. It also underscored the difficulty of doing so during a pandemic. This led to a surge of interest in online estate planning, which eliminates the need for paper documents and in-person meetings. Online estate planning can make it much easier for people to complete the process. However, it can also lead to fraud if appropriate consumer protections are not put in place.

Another related issue arises when property is passed down through generations (or heirs) without formal wills or other estate planning documents. This is referred to as heirs property. Without a clear title, owners of heirs property often are not eligible for government programs, such as property tax and disaster relief. And they may not be able to get a mortgage or homeowners insurance.