To better understand how to avoid probate. It is important to first understand why you should seek to avoid probate. Let’s start by defining some terms.

Why?

Probate: the process by which an asset (that has not been otherwise predesignated) passes from a decedent to that decedent’s heirs. The part of that sentence in parenthesis is pretty important. That’s because, if an asset is predesignated to pass to an individual, it avoids probate. In other words, we already know to whom the asset is supposed to go, so we don’t need to go through the probate process to determine the rightful owner.

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