Quote:
Originally Posted by Buckeyephan
When we moved to Florida, we had a new will made splitting assets between our two children. The house is in a trust and we checked and rechecked that after the surviving spouse, the kids are named beneficiaries on all accounts. Attorney said that would avoid probate. MIL didn’t have to pay property taxes since FIL was a disabled veteran and she was untrusting of doing anything that would jeopardize that. It’s difficult to convince someone in their nineties that putting the house in a trust was safe. Not paying taxes overrode anything and pressing her would make us appear greedy. Her lawyer did her a disservice.
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If your MIL did not have to pay property taxes all those years, you shouldn't have too much concern that she didn't blow money on having a trust designed. She came out just fine financially on that deal.
As far as your own estate, I don't know if this is true in Florida but if any asset pops up of which you hadn't planned or were unaware of or appeared after you were unable to handle because of health, age, etc., your estate will be thrown into probate.
Per AI: Generally, assets held in a trust can bypass probate. However, there are circumstances where assets in a trust, even if properly established, may still require probate. These typically occur when there are issues with how the assets were transferred to the trust, or if certain assets were not properly titled in the trust's name