Hi. Lee Phillips here. I'm a US Supreme Court Counsel
and I want to talk to you about a topic called probate.
And they said I had never done a YouTube video on just probate.
Probate is a big deal.
It affects every family, basically.
It's our society's way of moving property
from a deceased person to live people.
How do we transfer title to a piece of property
when dad's name is on the deed to the title?
How do we know that we sign that deed?
Dad's not there to sign the deed. Who signs the deed?
This probate process is a legal procedure that go through
in order to get the court's permission,
their rubber stamp,
on somebody else's signature on dad's title.
Then the company knows that we have good title to it
the title chain is complete.
We filed the probate paper
and we get somebody else to sign dad's name.
So that's what we're trying to do
is we're trying to move property from the deceased person to somebody else.
Now, what is the process entail?
That's where the problem comes and that's where the lawyers get you.
And they love to take advantage of people in this probate process.
In fact my wife had an uncle and he
drove his little airplanes into the ground
like all little airplane pilots do
and he was actually very wealthy.
It took over 20 years for his teenage kids
to get his estate through probate.
In fact, they finally got it through probate when
there wasn't any money left in it.
So the kids grew up until they were in their mid-40s
before they got any money.
And they got a fraction of the estate.
That's what probate can do to a family.
And the lawyers will say
Oh, probate's no big deal.
Our state has passed a streamlined probate law.
Well, yeah it has.
But the lawyers still take advantage of the family.
And I argue with lawyers all the time about this.
What you've got to do is you've got to go to court
and you've got to prove that this is your dad's real will.
In fact, "probate" is literally the Latin word for "prove".
Go to court, prove it to me.
Prove this is your dad's will.
Howard Hughes had 32 some odd wills
and they ever did find one of those to be the real thing.
And it took dozens of lawyers almost 40 years
to probate his estate.
Dozens--generations of lawyers
probated Howard Hughes's estate.
So we have to prove that it's dad's real will.
Then we have to prove that dad
Excuse me--chokes me all up.
Then we have to prove that dad didn't owe anybody money.
Because dad's creditors get first crack at the estate
before the heirs get their crack at the estate.
So we have to prove dad didn't owe anybody money.
We publish in the newspapers.
There are all these rules that you have to follow.
And the rules are state dependent.
In fact, to tell you how big this deal is,
you have the criminal court system
which is half the court system.
The other half of the court system is the
probate court system.
It's half of the legal court system in your state.
That's how big of a deal it is.
Anyway. Back to business.
Prove it's dads will.
Prove dad didn't owe any money.
Then you go to court
and the court will appoint
a personal representative
is what we call a guy today because we're not sexist
and that's the old executor/executrix
you appoint the personal representative
and that person has the power
to act on behalf of dad's estate
They sign the deed
Now they have to report back to the court
every so often
say what happens
because the court has control over everything
And the disaster is
if this is your dad's business
it's a medical practice
you've got to try and sell that quick
because the clients are going to go away.
No no no no no. That business,
that medical practice, that construction business,
whatever it is, is tied up in court
for a year, two years
because the probate calendar
you don't get on the calendar next week.
It takes months to get on the calendar
for your first appointment.
Then there's the second appointment.
Then there's the third appointment.
And so on and so forth.
So it's a very long process.
Now there are streamlined probate proceedings
and we can talk about that in another YouTube video
but probate is long.
It's expensive.
It's a public record.
You have to give an inventory of the estate.
Technically that's a public record.
Now most probate courts today will
withhold that from the public file
but people can still access it
and there are people who access these probate files
and then they go and they prey upon the window
or upon the kids or whoever
because they know that they just got three hundred thousand dollars
and they've got to invest it.
"You can invest it with me. It'll be good."
And so they actually pray on the heirs
once dad's probate has been filed
because it's a public piece of information.
It's getting better,
we're sealing the records a little more
but it's still pretty public.
So just avoid probate
unless you actually owe
or unless dad actually owes a lot of people money
then avoid it.
Oh, why would we want the probate?
That's actually another YouTube video.
But that the advantages of probate
and there are advantages
because when that gavel falls at the court
dad's dealings on this earth are finished.
Nobody can come back and sue the estate.
The creditors, if they didn't stand up and make their claim, they're through. They're out.
So we can use it for a number of advantages.
But it's a way of wrapping up dad's estate
and you've got to prove all this stuff.
Probate all the stuff.
This is Lee Phillips talking on probate.