{"id":12401,"date":"2017-01-30T13:53:18","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T17:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/legalcounselnj.com\/?p=12401"},"modified":"2020-04-20T15:53:27","modified_gmt":"2020-04-20T19:53:27","slug":"probateassets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/legalcounselnj.com\/probateassets\/","title":{"rendered":"Non-Probate Assets May Undermine your Estate Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"probate<\/a><\/p>\n

Probate versus non-probate assets must be understood in order to draft a proper estate plan. \u00a0Your Last Will only controls probate assets. Your non-probate assets could upset the intent you expressed under your Last Will if not properly identified, reviewed, and titled.<\/p>\n

Probate versus Non-Probate Assets<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Probate assets are those in your name alone. Examples are, a bank account solely in your name, a vehicle titled in your name, shares of stock in your name. Any asset that is in your name, alone, without a beneficiary or \u201cpayable on death\u201d beneficiary, is a probate asset.\u00a0Your Last Will controls their\u00a0disposition.<\/p>\n

Non-probate assets are those you own jointly with someone else, or an asset on which you have designated a beneficiary. Joint bank accounts, life insurance policies, certificates of deposit when you have designated it to be payable on death to another, are examples. These are not controlled by your Last Will. When you die they will automatically pass to the other owner or beneficiary, by operation of law.<\/p>\n

Why Should You Care?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

You should care about probate and non-probate assets and how they work as part of your estate plan. If you do not, you may defeat the plans you have for your loved ones upon your demise.\u00a0Your estate will not be distributed as described in your Last Will.<\/p>\n

The problem is illustrated by the following story: An\u00a0elderly woman arrives at my office with her daughter to update her Last Will. Mom tells me that she would like to leave her estate, equally, among her four daughters. Now, I can easily draft a Last Will as she asked, but there is a problem: The daughter in my office lives a few blocks away from her mother, and she helps her mother write out checks for her bills. Mom, in order to make things easy, went to the bank and put her daughter as a joint owner on all of her bank accounts. Do you see the problem?<\/p>\n

When Mom dies, all of her money will go to the one daughter, and Mom will have disinherited her\u00a0other three daughters by accident. Mom made her accounts into non-probate assets, by making them\u00a0\u201cjoint\u201d. The inheritance will not be equal.\u00a0 \u00a0There will be a lot of turmoil in this family.<\/p>\n

See An Estate Planning Attorney<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The issues surrounding probate and non-probate assets are only one aspect to preparing a sound estate plan. There are many others. So carry out your estate plan, consult with an\u00a0estate planning attorney\u00a0for peace of mind. \u00a0\u201cYou don\u2019t know what you don\u2019t know\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Probate versus non-probate assets must be understood in order to draft a proper estate plan. \u00a0Your Last Will only controls probate assets. Your non-probate assets could upset the intent you expressed under your Last Will if not properly identified, reviewed, and titled. Probate versus Non-Probate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228,3007],"tags":[219,247,92,229],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/legalcounselnj.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12401"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/legalcounselnj.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/legalcounselnj.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legalcounselnj.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legalcounselnj.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/legalcounselnj.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/legalcounselnj.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legalcounselnj.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legalcounselnj.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}