The Surviving Spouse: Completing a Succession AND Avoiding a Succession

I'd like to tell you about a scenario that we've run into quite a bit. It's when you have a married couple. One spouse dies and the surviving spouse goes through a succession or probate. It's that court proceeding that the surviving spouse has to go through to unfreeze all of the assets of the spouse who died. A lot of times that surviving spouse gets frustrated having to go through that court process and the surviving spouse then wants to set things up to eliminate their children having to go through that process. So, what oftentimes happens is the surviving spouse comes in and realizes how difficult the succession is and then wants to set up things perhaps with a revocable living trust so that the succession or probate is avoided when the surviving spouse dies. So really it's easiest if you do all of that at once. The surviving spouse's succession and then the surviving spouse's trust to eliminate the succession when the surviving spouse dies. It's really two steps that can be combined into one. So if you are a surviving spouse about to go through a probate and you want to make sure your children avoid that probate when you die, consider doing that all at once. If you have any questions about that you can give us a call at 866-491-3884. So be aware of that going into it and have a great day!