To Fund or Not to Fund? (April Fools!)

Instead of telling you how to avoid probate, in honor of April Fools Day, we decided to provide you with a list of how to guarantee that your assets will go through the probate process when you pass away. 

• Own everything in your name only
• Fail to name beneficiaries on all of your accounts, no transfer on death designations either
• Don’t own anything jointly, and if you do own real estate jointly, have it owned as tenants in common (note that only sometimes does owning real estate as tenants in common make sense)
• Create a trust, but don’t put anything in it. We lawyers call it “the funding of your trust.” If you don’t put anything in your trust, there is nothing for your successor Trustee to distribute and then the assets go through probate. Your estate planning attorney should assist you with the funding of your trust.