Probate is the process of resolving someone’s estate after death, but it can be lengthy and expensive in Delaware. Wilmington estate planning lawyer Basil Kollias will help you navigate the Court of Chancery probate process or avoid it entirely.
Even death, in Delaware, comes at a price. Unless you have gone through some advanced estate planning, when you pass away in Wilmington, your loved ones will have to go to the New Castle County Court of Chancery to resolve your will and probate your affairs, a process that can take up to a year or more.
The probate process is especially painful when poor estate planning leaves your estate in confusion or vulnerable to challenges and conflicts. If you have any kind of complex estate, assets, or legacy in mind, or if you simply wish to spare your family the costs and pains of probate, you should reach out to an experienced estate planning lawyer.
Such attorneys, like Basil Kollias in Wilmington, can help your family navigate the probate process after you pass, assisting them with the various bureaucratic procedures and minimizing conflict. Alternatively, if you work closely with such an estate planning lawyer, you can prepare your legacy to bypass probate entirely and spare your family the struggle.
Delaware’s Courts of Chancery handle many major business dealings and transactions; they are infamous for it, but they also deal with the estates of the dead. They are the only courts that have the authority to empower someone to make decisions and handle the financial assets of the deceased.
When you pass away, everything that is still held in your name, including properties like homes and assets like bank accounts, needs to be transferred out of your name. Property either needs to be transferred into the name of the loved one(s) you leave it to or sold so the proceeds can be split according to your wishes. All of this can take time, especially given how busy Delaware’s Court of Chancery can be, especially in Wilmington.
The court, which handles everything from credit card and insurance business law matters in New Castle County, advises on average at least a year for the complete probate process. Some exceptions are made for estates that are exceptionally modest, but their estimate does not take into account the potential for complications.
Unfortunately, probate is also the time when the estate is most vulnerable to challenges. From relatives fighting over your bequests to creditors trying to get a cut, some may even try to challenge your will itself, especially if it was not carefully prepared with the help of an experienced estate planning lawyer.
Estate planning lawyers, like Basil Kollias in Wilmington, can help you or your loved ones reduce probate’s sting in a number of different ways, from optimizing your estate plan to walking your family through the process or even building an estate plan that will keep you out of it entirely.
At the most basic level, a probate attorney is someone your loved ones can call for assistance when handling the administration of your estate. Probate procedures can be challenging; having a lawyer’s guidance is invaluable, especially if the estate is complicated by the lack of a will, a relative contesting the distribution, or especially complex assets to handle.
A probate lawyer will handle the administrative tasks associated with the estate, either as the executor or by working closely with your relative if they are designated as such.
Alternatively, if one of your relatives believes there might be abuse, deception, mismanagement, or self-serving behavior by those handling the estate, a probate lawyer can help look into the situation and challenge any illegal or unethical actions.
With the right estate planning tools in place, situations that would require the intervention of an attorney can usually be avoided. Wills can be set up to be much harder to contest or dispute, and automatic beneficiary designations can be used to have many assets transfer automatically on death.
Most importantly, you can be certain that the documents you’ve set up for that purpose and the people you have chosen to entrust them with will respect and accurately carry out your wishes.
Many of these tools, for optimizing the passage of your estate through probate, can be pushed one step further, to get your estate to avoid probate entirely, with a bit more advanced estate planning assistance from a skilled lawyer.
Probate, if you recall, is required to ensure the legal transfer of ownership when someone is no longer alive to do so directly. However, if you plan ahead, you can make it so that most, or even all, of your assets and property are no longer held under your name at the time of your death. Others can be set up to transfer automatically upon your death, leading to a situation where nothing needs to go through probate, and your relatives can skip some or all of the process.
This is mostly done with somewhat more advanced estate planning tools like trusts, into which you transfer your assets before death, or have them set up to transfer to it on death. Such estate planning techniques are not just useful for avoiding probate, either. With the help of an experienced estate planning attorney, trusts can give you even more control over your legacy and allow you to protect at-risk or special needs beneficiaries more effectively.
Kollias Law | A Wilmington lawyer ready to help you prepare your estate or see one through probate
If you have been put in charge of the administration of a loved one's estate, you know how burdensome the process can be, and the difference a skilled lawyer can make. But you might not realize how much of that hardship and expense you could spare the next generation by working with a lawyer ahead of time to plan your estate accordingly.
In Wilmington and throughout Delaware, Basil Kollias is an estate planning and probate lawyer who can see your estate through probate in the New Castle County Court of Chancery, or set up your estate so it never has to go through there. Which path you take is up to you, but know that whatever you choose, we will be proud to help you protect your legacy and preserve it for the next generations.
To set up a consultation to discuss your estate planning goals or probate needs, just call (302) 444-8140 or reach out to us online today.
