Grieving the loss of a loved one is hard enough, and families are lucky if they're able to prepare in advance for the worst. What most families aren't prepared for, though, are the predatory calls and ...

Greg DePersio has 13+ years of professional experience in sales and SEO and 3+ years as a writer and editor. skynesher / Getty Images Though your will is not public during your lifetime, after you die ...

When planning for the transfer of assets after death, two terms come up often: probate and trust. Probate is the court-supervised process of validating a will, paying debts and distributing assets to ...

No, not all wills go into probate. Whether a will must go through probate depends on various factors, such as the type and value of the deceased's assets, how those assets were owned, and the specific ...

Always name a beneficiary for your accounts so that your heirs can skip the probate process Matt Webber is an experienced personal finance writer, researcher, and editor. He has published widely on ...

This is the third installment of my seven-part series on major estate planning mistakes. The first two are here and here. Not avoiding probate. When an asset passes to others through a will, it has to ...