​When a loved one has just died it can be difficult to know what needs to be done.  While the largest question may be whether you need to do a formal probate, that question cannot always be answered immediately and often doesn’t need to be answered until about 30 days after death.  While it can provide some useful peace of mind to find an attorney and schedule a free consultation to figure that out, you can schedule that a few weeks out and doing so may give you some necessary time to gather information and take care of more immediate issues.
 
But there are other tasks that you may need to tend to on a more immediate time table after death.  It can be helpful to break down tasks that need to be done into small, manageable pieces.
 
The most pressing matters for the family to address is who will take care of pets or children. If there’s a Will, hopefully an answer is readily clear. If such questions aren’t addressed in a Will, or a Will is hard to find, coming to family decisions around the care of children and pets are a priority.  If whoever is going to take care of the children is not their legal parent and is going to need to make decisions or sign paperwork for school or health care in the immediate future, that may be a reason to open a probate, guardianship, or third party custody action on an expedited matter.  If you are facing that situation, let us or any other law firm you call know you have those issues so they can move you earlier in the queue. 
 
Once the kids and pets are at least temporarily sorted, it’s very easy to be completely enveloped in funeral planning but some other immediate things that are useful to consider are:

• Have someone collect the mail for you.
• Make sure that valuable property is protected, whether that means making sure payments are made to the alarm company for a house, as well as house maintenance like electricity and water bills, and that lights in the house are on timers to make it look lived, any necessary lawn care to keep up appearances, and have the house is checked on.  (If you need to advance money for this, keep good track of what you spend and keep receipts. These monies can usually be paid back from the decedent’s assets once the process to wrap up their affairs is determined.)
• If you are named executor in the will, you may want to check the house for items of value and make sure they are secured somewhere safe. We recommend letting other family members know you are securing the items so no one is upset to not find them in an expected place.
• Cancel unneeded repeat services. if there’s a gym membership, cellphone bill, or cable, or newspaper, or anything else that won’t be used, mail the service providers about the death.

 
Delegating and working together as a family can help make these tasks easier, e.g. if each sibling takes a service provider to cancel the service of.
 
Once these pressing concerns are dealt with and funeral or other ceremonies are complete, it’s a good time to take stock of the Estate to prepare for your initial visit with an attorney. Getting a general idea of assets held by the estate, whether those assets are real estate or financial accounts, and the debts of the estate will provide a basis to determine if you’ll need to conduct a probate. As you make this assessment keep an eye out for a Will. Note how the assets are held and if they have named beneficiaries. Going through mail and any files you find may help shed light onto debts. If there are a lot of debts and you’re worried about dealing with all of the creditors, it may be worth it to have a probate, particularly if the debts outweigh the value of assets in the estate. The executor is never personally liable for debt of an estate they’re probating.  

Don’t panic if you don’t have all the answers before you meet with your attorney but the more information you have, the more you will get out of that first meeting and the more the attorney will be able to determine what process is best for you to do and how to get that started. 
 
Phinney Estate Law offers free ½ hour consultation to all probate clients.  Call to schedule one at (206) 459-1908 or email us at info@phinneyestatelaw.com. 
 

A probate is the primary legal process necessary to wrap up the legal and financial affairs of someone when they die.  Almost all probates follow the same pattern of 9 basic sections:

1. The probate is opened through a collection of documents: petition, the oath of the petitioner, the Will if there is one, a death certificate, and an order approved by a judge.
2. Official notices are sent to heirs and beneficiaries, either those listed in a Will, and/or those who will inherit by law with the lack of a Will.
3. Official notices are also sent to government agencies like the Washington State Department of Health Services and the IRS.
4. Notice is sent to known creditors and published to inform unknown creditors.
5. An inventory of the estate is made noting the kinds of significant assets present and their value, as well as what debts there are.
6. Any claims from creditors are paid.
7. Any bequests in the form of specific amounts allotted in the will, are distributed.Taxes are paid.
8. The remaining value of the estate is divided among recipients named in the Will, or if there is no will, divided among the family who inherit under the law.
9. The probate is closed.

 
Most probates last between five and twelve months.  Probates that last longer than six months usually so do because there is real estate that is taking a long time to prepare for market and sell or because we are waiting on information to file the final tax returns. 
 
At Phinney Estate Law we work with clients through every step of this process.  Usually clients never need to go to court and most of the work can be done by phone, mail, or email.  We offer all potential clients a free ½ hour consultation to help them determine if a probate is necessary and talk in some detail about what that process might look like for their case.  Some clients choose to do a lot of the work for steps 4 to 9 fairly independently, only looking to us to help when they have questions or needs forms.  This can give the client a high level of control and also save on legal costs.  Others prefer to have us do the bulk of the work because they are busy, emotionally overwhelmed, or simply hate this kind of paperwork.  We are happy to work with clients in whatever way is best for them while still making sure they get the legal help they need to avoid errors that could get them into trouble down the road.

When someone you love has  just died, figuring out what you need to do to wrap up their financial affairs can be daunting to consider. One of the first questions may people ask is “Do I need to do a probate?”  Probate is one of the main ways to handle property after a person’s death.  Many people are scared of probate, having heard horror stories from family and friends.  But in Washington probate is not as complex or expensive as it is in many states and with the right help can usually be completed relatively quickly and without huge cost.  But probate also isn’t always needed.
 
In Washington State,  if someone leaves behind more than $100,000 in assets when they die and those assets do not already named beneficiaries through jointly held accounts, Transfer-on-Death, or Payable-On-Death structuring, then you’ll likely need a probate. Also, If the estate contains real estate it will likely need to go through probate, unless the property was held titled as “Joint Ownership with Right of Survivorship” or as community property with right of survivorship. Even if the Estate is small in value and doesn’t contain real estate, it may be beneifical to do a probate anyways.  For example, if someone had a lot of debts and it seems it would be overwhelming to deal with them all, court oversight and the official timelines provided by a probate, may be useful and that would be another reason to conduct a probate of the estate. Also, if the individual was already involved in any legal disputes or if someone else is responsible for their death, probate may be the only way to resolve those issues. 
 
Knowing the legal impact of how assets are titled and/or whether pending issues make probate necessary can be difficult to determine.  At Phinney Estate Law we recommend that everyone facing a death get legal advice to help them determine whether they need to do a probate before acting on any assumptions they may have. We offer a free ½ hour consultation for potential probate clients at Phinney Estate Law and can often provide that advice within that time. 
 
To maximize the benefits of that consultation we recommend that clients come to that meeting with the following: 

• copies of any wills, trusts, or community property agreements the deceased person created during their life
• copies of any deeds, bank statements, investment statements
• car titles you can find
• notes about any debts or other assets you know they have and unfinished business going on in their lives at their time of death. 

We recommend that you call any institutions or banks where the deceased person had accounts and ask them to tell you how those accounts were titled and if they had beneficiaries.  Often they may not be able to answer your questions, if you have not yet opened a probate and that is okay.  But knowing and much as you can, including what they won’t tell you without your opening a probate can very helpful.  We recommend you write all the information you learn down word for word and bring it with you as grief can play tricks on your memory especially if you are feeling stressed.
 
Even if probate is not necessary, you may need to do legal process, such as a small affidavit process, a trust administration, or a beneficiary claim.  A consultation can help you determine that as well. 

Regardless of what process you end up needing to complete, anyone who has a deceased person’s will has 40 days in which to file it with the court.  You don’t need to open up a probate that quickly but if you are going to do so, it makes sense to do that at the same time.  That is also generally a good deadline to set for yourself for figuring out what process you are going to go through and staring it.  To make that work you should plan on trying to set up a consultation within 30 days of the person’s death if possible.

To learn more about Probates read the next post in this series.