Chicago Wills Attorney

In effect, a Will is a written direction to the judge of the probate court in which you tell the judge who you want to get your assets.  In many instances, a Will can only be effective if it goes through probate. 

There are three basic concerns with the probate process, namely:

1. expense; 
2. time; and 
3. privacy.

There is no way to state with any specificity at this time how much it would cost to complete the probate process but in my experience, if you use 1% to 2% of the total value of assets that are being probated as a rule of thumb, you'll be close.  It may cost less, but it may cost more - e.g. if your estate is being probated in Illinois but you own real estate in another state, you may have to go through probate in Illinois and the state in which the real estate is located.  This will undoubtedly increase the overall expense of the probate process.

Under Illinois law, a probate estate must remain open for a minimum of 6 months.  Quite often an estate will remain open for a year and sometimes much longer.  During that time, the beneficiaries of the probate estate will usually receive nothing.  With probate, the beneficiaries will not receive any of their inheritance until the entire process has been completed.

The probate process can result in public exposure of your assets, what they are worth, and who is getting them.

The use of an effectively funded Trusts will eliminate the need to go through probate.  In my experience, the cost of administering  a Trust can be about 1/4th the cost of going through probate.  With a Trust, partial distributions can be made to the Trust beneficiaries within a matter of a month or so after the passing of the client.  Complete distributions can usually be made much faster than in a probate situation.  A Trust is completely private.  No one except for the beneficiaries will know who gets what.

In any event, a typical estate plan will include a Will.  Such a Will is often referred to as a “pour over” Will.  This Will states that while the client was alive, they set up a Trust and that when they pass away, any asset that wasn’t owned by the Trust, or that didn’t have a beneficiary will be “poured over” or put into the Trust.  For example, a person has a checking account with a $10,000.00 balance and savings account with a $5,000.00 balance.  Those accounts are in the person’s name individually, not owned by a Trust.  If that person dies and has a pour over Will, that Will shall cause the accounts to paid over to the Trust.  Those accounts will become part of the assets of the Trust and will be distributed to the Trust beneficiaries.  The only concern with the pour over Will is that the value of the assets which pass under the terms of the Will should not exceed a total of $100,000.00.  If they do, the Will must be probated to be effective.