Here is the second column to discuss practical how-to tips to ensure a smooth estate administration.   

Over the years of handling hundreds of estate administrations, the best legal problems, I have found, are the ones which never happen. Use these suggestions to guide you if you are handling an estate in which the decedent did not have their assets in a trust. 

1. Are there assets which may pass outside of probate? Yes, likely.  Unless you make informed choices to provide otherwise, your beneficiary designations for accounts presumably should go to the same beneficiaries as your will provides. 

Best Practice.  If you are a single parent and you have adult children who are responsible who will inherit your property, it makes sense to consider having your bank and investment accounts “payable on death,” or “transfer on death” to these children. These assets will go to them a short time after your passing, and these assets are payable outside of the probate estate. 

2. What if a decedent’s bank account is set up so that a parent and one of the children can write checks on that account to pay a parent’s bills, for example? Check to see what happens when the parent passes away.  Often an account is innocently set up and the bank account is owned by both the parent and the child in a RIGHT OF SURVIVORSHIP ACCOUNT.  When the parent passes, any remaining monies in that account go directly, to the surprise of all, just to that one adult child. The loved one’s will may provide that everything goes to all their children, but the monies in this main account are going FULLY to just one child. 

Best Practice. Set up the account so it is owned by the parent, and the adult child can write checks as the parent’s power of attorney agent.  The parent will have to have a power of attorney in writing, of course, naming that adult child.  This way the assets in that account can go to ALL OF THE CHILDREN, not just to the one adult child who is simply helping the parent pay the parent’s bills. 

This article was originally written by Mike Wells and published by the Winston-Salem Journal. To read the full article, visit the Winston-Salem Journal online here.