I am going through this with my mother passing. Please everyone look at every account you have from checking to banking to retirement. Make sure it has beneficiaries listed and has TOD on it or they are joint account. Make sure you have a checking account with enough money in it for burial and last minute medical expenses that is joint owned by a trusted child or someone that can access the money immediately and not have to wait for death certificates. Of course, ultimate word dare is trusted. You can avoid a probate with a trust. I don’t know about the ladybird deed. I will be looking into that soon too. My mother made a mistake of trusting the click on her last account that said copy beneficiaries from previous account.. The beneficiaries did not go over. Now those accounts have to be probated and yes, there is a substantial fee that will go to the state based on the amount in the account. Don’t trust attorneys either. Double check as her trust didn’t have successors and trustee set up the way she actually wanted it. Call your financial institutions and ask what will happen to the trust account if you pass and what they will be looking for to see who controls it.
|