Don’t get your house stuck in probate, Record that quit claim deed your estate planning attorney creates for you.
This is not often a problem that comes up, but I was looking at Attorney John Fairfield’s website and he had an interesting case that he could have so easily never had to deal with, saving heirs a lot of time, money, and frustration.
It seems he had a family come to him to solve a problem they had after their loved one had passed away. The loved one had taken the time to get his affairs in order. He had hired a different estate planning attorney to create a trust. And once the trust was created, most attorneys provide documentation to transfer assets like houses into the trust. Once the assets are in the trust, then should the person pass, the heirs can follow the will, sell assets as needed, and avoid probate.
Sadly, while the original estate attorney had created the quit claim deeds and they were all ready to be recorded, no one did it. So now rather than the estate being able to sell the house, they had to hire an attorney to sort it all out. So not only did the time and money spent on the estate plan get wasted, the heirs had to spend even more money to solve the problem.
To read more about this case you can visit John Fairfield’s website.
The moral of the story, is if you spend the time and money to create an estate plan, don’t let your house get stuck in probate, record that quit claim deed.
Note that this also applies to most assets that have some kind of recorded ownership like rental property, cars, boats, airplanes. You get the idea.
And while we are on the subject of not counting. Keep in mind that a Power of Attorney is no longer valid once the person granting the power of attorney passes. So if you were an heir with a power of attorney, tasked with recording the quitclaim deed, be sure you do while the POA is still valid.
Do you have a house to sell that may be stuck in probate? We can work with you and wait out the process. Take a few minutes to tell us about the property or give us a call.
