When someone dies, no assets can be under their name. When a person dies, the law requires these assets to go to their new rightful owner. In most cases, there will be a will present, which will guide the assets’ distribution. If the person fails to make a trust before their demise, the assets still need to go to someone within the family. For this, the probate court appoints an executor who is usually a family member to manage the deceased estate. Hire Kings county probate lawyer for more information.
Probate assets are the assets owned by the deceased person who has to go through the probate process. Only then can you legally transfer the assets to your heir. But not all assets will be included in the probate assets. We will now look at what assets are liable to be listed in the probate.
Hire Kings County Probate Lawyer To Know What Happens To Individual Assets
Individual assets are the assets that are solely on the name of the deceased person. Most of the assets that come under individual assets have to come under the probate assets. These assets do not have any other beneficiary or a co-owner named after it. There are several ways to avoid putting these assets into the probate process. One way to do so is to put the assets in a trust so that you lose the assets’ ownership.
The most common assets that fall under these categories are bonds, savings accounts, vehicles, stocks, boats, and any other such valuable objects. After the death of a person, these assets have nowhere to go. Therefore, these assets get included in the probate assets. The court will then decide to whom these assets will be transferred. To properly handle all these assets, you can hire a Kings county probate lawyer.
What Happens To Assets Left Out Of A Trust
A lot of people create a living trust so that all their assets go to their heir. But what they forget to do is update the trust every year. Any assets mentioned in the trust will not get included in the probate assets. But any additional assets purchased after making the living trust will be included in the deceased probate estate. To ensure that you put the assets under a living trust, hire a Kings county probate lawyer.
Hire Kings County Probate Lawyer To Handle Co-Owned Property
Co-owned property is those properties that have two or more owners. The share of the property may be equal between the owners, i.e., 50-50 percent share. It could also be that one might own 80 percent, and the other may own only 20 percent. It is quite common to have such assets when you are either married or in a live-in relationship. In such cases, all the assets get included in the probate process.
In such cases, these assets are directly transferred without the probate process and will not be mentioned in the decedent’s estate. It would be best to consult with a Kings county probate lawyer on sharing your assets with your spouse or your kids.
Hire Kings County Probate Lawyer To Know What Happens To Beneficiary Assets
We know that any assets that already have a beneficiary named will not come under the probate process. But there is some exception to such beneficiary assets. But have you wondered what happens when the person named as the beneficiary has already passed away? In such cases, the court will consider these assets as without any beneficiaries and will automatically come under the deceased estate and the probate process. Some of the common examples of these assets are medical savings accounts, retirement accounts like IRA and 401(k)s, life insurance benefits, and annuities. To accurately identify such assets, we would recommend you to hire a Kings county probate lawyer.
Conclusion
We have seen all the assets that will be included in your estate and will go through the estate process. If you hire a Kings county probate lawyer, they can help you to plan your estate correctly such that you can transfer some assets directly without the hassle of the probate process.
You also need to remember that you cannot avoid probate entirely, as your estate needs to be utilized to pay off any liabilities or debts that you owe to the creditors. You may not be able to handle all the assets and liabilities. Therefore, it is best to hire a probate lawyer to handle all the processes. They will make sure that most of the assets will not get included in the deceased probate estate.