Let’s face it: Probate gets a bad press. It takes time, costs money, and adds to the complexity of the estate administration process after someone dies.
For trust and estate professionals, however, probate is an opportunity to build trust with your clients. Done right, it can foster transparency, ensure proper asset distribution, and strengthen client confidence in your services. Read on to discover the benefits of taking a proactive approach to probate.
If Americans think of probate at all, they tend to underestimate it. That’s because estate planning doesn’t come top of the nation’s to-do list. In 2008, Congress was so alarmed by the 120 million Americans who hadn’t made a will that they introduced National Estate Planning Awareness Week, which now takes place every October.
But, there’s still a long way to go. A 2024 survey found that only 32% of Americans have made a will, a 6% drop from the year before.
As a result, the majority of Americans are unfamiliar with estate planning in general and with probate in particular. So when someone dies, challenges and complexities can easily arise. Beneficiaries expecting to receive their inheritance are often surprised by the length of the process (20 months on average) and the cost (between 3% and 7% of the value of the estate). All of this adds to their grief and distress of losing a loved one.
For legal professionals, opportunity lies in taking a proactive approach: educating clients about probate in order to manage expectations and helping them create a comprehensive estate plan to lay the groundwork for a smooth administration process further down the line. In the long term, this will help foster trust with your clients and ease the distress of their families.
Probate is a legal process where an individual’s assets are distributed to beneficiaries according to their will. Supervised by the court, it involves a strict series of steps that cover everything from validating the will in court to formally appointing the executor, settling the estate’s debts, and distributing the remaining assets.
The legal nature of probate means that there are plenty of traps for the unwary. Documents have to be filed correctly, deadlines have to be met, and costs have to be paid. When families are unprepared, this can cause lengthy delays as well as disputes.
However, all of this legal oversight has a tremendous upside. Probate is a public process, which requires meticulous documentation and court approval at every stage. This means that beneficiaries have visibility of all major transactions and decisions, giving them reassurance that the estate is being properly managed. By highlighting this transparency to clients, you can demystify the probate process and ease the emotional toll, as well as build trust in your practice.
Probate is designed to ensure that assets are distributed properly and fairly. While the steps might feel frustrating to your clients, it’s important to explain why they’re necessary. For example, they’ll feel better about waiting for all the estate’s creditors to come forward if it reduces the risk of a claim against the estate later on.
You can also help this along by encouraging your clients to lay the foundation for a smooth administration process in the first place. Making a thoughtful estate plan, reviewing it regularly, and amending it in line with any changes in circumstance will ensure that assets are distributed properly when the time comes.
Probate has a reputation for being lengthy and costly—but it doesn’t have to be. As a legal professional, you can help your clients feel confident about the process, whether they’re grappling with estate administration as an executor or preparing their own estate plan.
By guiding executors and families through the process and letting them know what to expect, you can help them avoid many of the legal pitfalls. For example, gathering all the necessary documentation ahead of time will prevent delays when it comes to validating the will and appointing the executor of the estate. Similarly, when clients use their understanding of probate to inform their estate plan, they’ll feel confident about their wishes being respected.
Many of your clients will either be unprepared for probate or simply scared of it. But by proactively educating them on its complexities and helping them create estate plans, you can turn probate into an opportunity to build relationships and deepen trust.
It’s an approach that can reap dividends—but only if you can carve out the time to really focus on that client relationship. That’s where software can help. Estateably is a platform designed for trust and estate professionals that takes the manual, repetitive work out of the administration process. With tools including reporting, document generation and accounting, Estateably not only keeps you compliant but also frees you up to guide and educate your clients.
Book a free demo to find out how you can streamline the probate process and power up your practice.
Estateably Inc. © 2024
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