Avoid This Costly Mistake in Your Estate Plan

Well, o- one of the questions came in from a woman in, uh, in Virginia, I- I think out of Reston, Virginia, and she was asking about her real estate, and she's trying to figure out some estate planning concerns.

She wanted to know about how she can avoid or minimize probate on her real estate in the state of Virginia.

And, you know, I know people like lists, right? That's a big thing.

[laughs]

We get, we get that all the time, "Can you give me a list of the important things I need to know?" And so for this woman, the, the most important thing is, one, avoid probate, right? That's important.

Mm-hmm.

Two, avoid probate-

[laughs]

... and three, avoid probate.

Okay.

[laughs]

Right? Because s- s- so in most states, you know, AARP tells us that across the country, most people pay somewhere between 2 to 4% of the value of their estate to go through probate.

So her concern or her desire to avoid probate makes perfect sense, right? And there's a few states that don't allow you to go through the probate process on your own, so you actually have to hire an attorney.

So, like, you know, for our, our clients in Florida, they have to hire an attorney.

For our clients in Texas, they have to hire an attorney to g- go through probate.

So in, in those places, you definitely want to avoid it in the first place.

And it's not that probate is difficult.

It's time-consuming, and if you're gonna lose 2 to 4%, that's ex- can be expensive.

I mean, imagine owning a home.

I m- let's assume that's your only asset, like this woman's talking about her real estate in Virginia.

If your only asset is, is a piece of real estate, let's just assume it's a million bucks, and-

Yeah, in Reston, Virginia it probably is.

[laughs]

Yeah, let's just assume it's a million bucks, and, and it costs you 2% to go through probate, that's $20,000.

Well, the, you know, she asked us an important question, and most states, not every single states, has some mechanism to avoid probate.