Unsworth LaPlante, PLLC

Vermont Estate Planning Attorneys

Call: (802) 879-7133

Ready to get Started on your Estate Plan?
Home Âğ Keeping Your Estate Plans Private

Keeping Your Estate Plans Private

by

Adobestock Scaled

A comprehensive estate plan should attempt to achieve several interrelated goals in addition to creating a roadmap for the distribution of estate assets after your death. Probate avoidance is often one of these additional goals. There are numerous reasons why you may want your estate to avoid probate, including the lack of privacy associated with the probate of an estate. To better explain, the Essex Junction attorneys at Unsworth LaPlante, PLLC discuss how probate avoidance can help keep your estate plans private.

Probate Basics

When you pass away, everything you own at the time of your death will make up your “estate.” To ensure that your estate assets are properly identified, valued, and eventually passed down to the rightful beneficiaries and/or heirs of your estate, your estate will need to go through some form of probate. Probate also serves to authenticate your Last Will and Testament (assuming you left one behind) and allows for challenges to the validity of that Will. Finally, probate ensures that all debts of your estate are paid, including taxes owed to the state and/or federal government. Because formal probate can be a lengthy as well as costly process, people frequently choose to include probate avoidance among their estate planning goals; however, there are other reasons to make an effort to avoid probate within your estate plan as well, such as the lack of privacy.

How Does Probate Avoidance Help Keep My Estate Plan Private?

Along with other reasons to avoid probate, you may decide to incorporate probate avoidance tools and strategies into your estate plan simply because of the concerns you have about the lack of privacy during the probate of your estate.

Shortly after your death, the person named as the Executor of your estate in your Last Will and Testament should file the required documents, including an original copy of your Will. with the appropriate court to initiate the probate of your estate. Once your Will has been filed with the court, your Will becomes a matter of public record, meaning anyone can view the terms of your Will. If any of the decisions you made in your Will are likely to hurt someone’s feelings or cause a dispute within the family, making those choices public does not help the situation.

There are other ways in which the lack of privacy during probate can be a problem for your loved ones as well. For example, the public nature of probate means that your legal heirs and named beneficiaries may start receiving unsolicited telephone calls and mail from a wide range of companies trying to sell them everything from funeral services to vacations around the world. The larger the inheritance left to a beneficiary, the more likely he/she is to start hearing from advertisers.

Real estate professionals may also start trying to contact beneficiaries and heirs who are named as the recipients of real property in your Will. Before your funeral service is even over, people may be bothering your loved ones trying to get them to sell your home or property. Beneficiaries may also be barraged with “cash advance” offers. Knowing that probate can take months, even years, to reach a conclusion, these predators offer to give a beneficiary/heir a lump sum now in exchange for signing over the expected inheritance. Of course, the beneficiary/heir will only receive a percentage (and a small one at that) of the full inheritance with the rest going to the company that made the cash advance.

All these potential privacy concerns can be eliminated by using a living trust as the primary method of distribution for your estate assets instead of relying primarily on your Will. Talk to your estate planning attorney about how to keep the terms of your estate plan private.

Can We Help Keep Your Estate Plan Private?

For more information, please attend one of our upcoming FREE webinars. If you are interested in discussing how we can help keep your estate plan private, contact an experienced Essex Junction estate planning attorney at Unsworth LaPlante, PLLC by calling 802-879-7133 to schedule your appointment today.

Wendy S. Hillmuth
Latest posts by Wendy S. Hillmuth (see all)