Avoiding probate by placing a home in both names

Sonja Panajotovic, Estate & Tax Attorney, shares advice for married couples on how you can avoid probate by placing your home in both names
How To Avoid Probate After The Death Of A Spouse
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Avoiding probate by placing a home in both names

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On the death of the first spouse, it's possible that the property could end up in probate. It would rally depend on how the assets are held. For example, if the assets are held between the spouses as joint tenants, then no, the property would not have to go through probate. If, for example, the title to the house is only held in the husband's name and the husband passes away, the wife would have to petition the court for transfer of the house into her name. And between spouses, there's a shortened probate process, generally, that would make it slightly easier. But it's still a process and you have to go to court and seek permission, and it's something that can be avoided easily.

Sonja Panajotovic, Estate & Tax Attorney, shares advice for married couples on how you can avoid probate by placing your home in both names

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Sonja Panajotovic

Estate & Tax Attorney

In 1992, Ms. Panajotovic graduated from University of Colorado, Boulder with a bachelor's degree in Business Administration/Finance and with multiple honors as a scholar/athlete (tennis) and honored as Academic All Big Eight, and Scholar Athlete of the year. She earned her law degree from the Southwestern University School of Law and graduated Cum Laude, was an Associate Editor for the Law Review, and on the Dean’s List, and began her legal career as a law clerk for Magistrate Judge Margaret A. Nagle, United States District Court, Los Angeles, and as an associate at the prestigious law firm of Brobeck Phleger & Harrison LLP.

Sonja Panajotovic’s estate planning services include the preparation of documents ranging from simple wills to advanced health care directives, asset transfers and living trusts. She also counsels many of her clients on the various types of trusts such as the marital deduction trust, special needs trusts, Q-TIP trusts, and charitable remainder trusts and helps her clients coordinate their trusts with their overall estate planning needs.

 Her probate and estate practice is also designed to provide full legal services to personal representatives of decedent's estates, trustees, and guardians/conservators for minors or incapacitated adults, including all proceedings in the probate court. She aids her clients with estate and trust administration to efficiently transfer assets from decedent's trusts or estates to intended beneficiaries at death.

Guardianship, Wills and Trusts
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