THERE ARE DIFFERENT FORMS OF PROBATE

Ice Cream……so many flavors, so many choices, so much fun!!! Not the same
when it comes to settling an estate. Only so many questions. Do I need to go
to Probate Court, what assets do I report, how do I pay bills, and what bills am I required to pay???

The best place to start is to determine whether or not the deceased individual
has a will as this will be the guide to distributing assets and paying expenses.
Next, one should compile a list of all assets owned by the decedent, whether
sole-owned or with another individual. This information will form the basis of
the type of probate necessary.

A full probate of a person’s estate will require notification of all heirs and
beneficiaries, filing an inventory, a list of claims against the estate, a state
inheritance tax return, an accounting of all financial actions taken, and a final
distribution, just to name a few of the documents. And all this depends on
what the decedent’s assets are, and how they are held, solely owned or jointly
owned. And just to add to the confusion, there is another method of probate,
an Affidavit of Administration, that doesn’t require as much paperwork and
can be settled in a shorter time frame. Now there is a third method of probate,
and that occurs when all assets are jointly owned by a survivor. This is a
Tax Purposes Only (a TPO Estate). Assets such as bank accounts, life
insurance policies, and stocks can usually be transferred without Probate
Court involvement.

However, if real property is jointly owned, then
Connecticut requires the filing of a state inheritance tax return in order to
properly clear title to the real property putting it in the survivor’s name alone,
an important detail when it comes to refinancing or mortgaging or selling that
real property.

All of this can be quite confusing and there are many steps where mistakes
can happen making the whole process even more complicated and confusing.
The Prue Law Group is experienced in all aspects of probating an estate.
When Legal Matters, Call The Prue Law Group.