Probate, Privacy & You | Cooper Elder Law

By Attorney Ted Brown

As an Elder Law attorney, I often advise clients of the many benefits of avoiding probate by placing their assets in a trust. Among these benefits are decreased cost of administration, survivor?s immediate access to trust assets and the ability to keep the details of your estate plan private. When a will is admitted to probate it becomes a matter of public record, including the details of what your assets are and who will be getting them.

Apart from the obvious, this lack of privacy can have many negative consequences. I recently heard of a case where a real estate investor used probate records to find business leads. He would search the records for elderly widows holding the family home and attempt to ?make on offer? on the house. He would also contact the executor and the attorney for the estate, whose information is also public record, and attempt to inject himself into their affairs, offering cash up front and help finding the surviving spouse new living arrangements. His offers were always low, and played on the economic uncertainty of both the real estate market and the personal finances of the surviving spouse.

This is just one example of the importance of an estate plan focused on avoiding probate. Under Ohio law, assets placed in a trust automatically pass to survivors and do not become public record. Not only does this protect your privacy and the privacy of your estate, but it also protects our heirs from swindlers in their hour of need.

Source: http://cooperelderlaw.com/probate/probate-privacy-you/

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