Julia Kagan is a financial/consumer journalist and former senior editor, personal finance, of Investopedia. Ebony Howard is a certified public accountant and a QuickBooks ProAdvisor tax expert. She ...

Learn about probate court's role in managing estates, settling debts, and distributing assets. Explore the probate process ...

Probate is the court-supervised process of validating a deceased person’s will. It involves identifying the person’s final assets, paying last debts and distributing property to the proper heirs. And ...

When a loved one passes away, families are often faced with not only emotional challenges but also legal responsibilities.

Probate refers to the legal process of settling the estate of a deceased person. This process can take anywhere from a few months to a couple of years, depending on several factors such as the size ...

This is the third installment of my seven-part series on major estate planning mistakes. The first two are here and here. Not avoiding probate. When an asset passes to others through a will, it has to ...

What is a probate attorney? Probate can feel like stepping into a maze of legal paperwork, court deadlines and emotional decisions, often at one of life’s more difficult moments. Families suddenly ...

When a loved one passes away and you know you need to get the probate court involved, oftentimes people find themselves asking where they begin. Further, people often wonder if they must get an ...

The article about Aubrey McClendon’s estate says that probate is usually for those who lack the means to plan their estates (“Oil Tycoon’s Probate Fight Enters Year 2,” page one, March 3). In fact, ...

When planning your estate in Washington State, one of the most common questions is whether to use a Revocable Living Trust (RLT) or a Will. Most are curious because of the horrors they hear or the ...

Can You Settle an Estate Without Probate? In certain situations, it is possible to settle an estate without going through probate. Assets held in joint ownership, assets with named beneficiaries (such ...

Q: A fairly wealthy friend of mine recently passed away. Supposedly, in his will he left most everything to his spouse. The problem is that she has been told by her lawyer it will take up to six ...