Associate Attorney

“So why is it important that a will is public or not?

Well privacy concerns, yeah. A will has to be deposited with the court, so that’s really the difference here is that a will has to be deposited. And so anybody can go look at it after you’re gone. Everyone has a right to go look at it. All they have to do is make an appointment with our probate office right there on the third floor and anyone can go look at it.

The whole administration of your will is going to be at a public forum in front of judges, in front of the court, and the court going to be making all the decisions. So rather than you being able to make your decisions about where you want your assets to go, the court at the end of the day does make those decisions. They can surcharge your heirs for different things. They can choose that someone shouldn’t be an heir because they did something despicable. There’s a lot of different things, the court has a lot of discretion in probate that allows them to make decisions regarding wills, so if you want as much control as possible of where you want your assets to go after you pass then you should get a trust.

Because you never know what’s going to happen in a courtroom. I think we’ve all seen how crazy cases can happen and at the end of the day you never know. They are a human being. They’re going to make a decision and you might think it’s the wrong one but they think it’s the right one and at the end of the day what they decide is what is going to be upheld.””