Why it's important to try and avoid probate

Estate & Tax Attorney, Sonja Panajotovic, shares advice on estate planning and explains the importance of avoiding probate due to its cost and length of procedures
Why It's Important To Try And Avoid Probate
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Why it's important to try and avoid probate

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It's important to avoid probate because probate is an expensive and costly, expensive and long procedure. It can take anywhere from six months to a years. I have had probates go for five, six years before all the issues get resolved. Another thing about probate is that it is very expensive. Generally, the costs are about 10 percent of the value of the estate with a Living Trust, it all can be avoided.

Estate & Tax Attorney, Sonja Panajotovic, shares advice on estate planning and explains the importance of avoiding probate due to its cost and length of procedures

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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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