Probate is a court-supervised process of authenticating a last will and testament and the property designations therein of the deceased. An executor or an executrix is approved to locate and appraise the value of the person's assets, make arrangements for the payment of remaining debts and taxes, including the payment of funeral expenses, and then distributing the remainder of the estate to beneficiaries set forth in the testator's last will and testament. A will is a legal document that spells out who will inherit a person's property when they die. Specifically, a last will and testament will also address financial accounts, financial interests, debt, and other financial and non-financial items related to the testator's estate. Our business attorneys can advise you on a wide range of legal matters, including will probate and estate administration, including will contests.
An executor, or executrix, is the legal personal representative or executor approved by the court who is responsible for locating and overseeing all the assets and final debts of the deceased. As a part of administering the estate, the executor (executrix) has to estimate the value of the estate by using the property's value at the date of death or an appraisal, if the real property is real estate or heirlooms. If the estate has sufficient assets, the executor must pay off all taxes and debt owed by the deceased. In the event a party dies without a will, an administrator will be appointed, and the intestate estate will be distributed to the decedent’s heirs according to state laws.
Most assets that are subject to probate administration come under the probate court's supervision in the place where the decedent lived at death. The exception is real estate. You must probate real estate in the county in which it is located. There are generally three (3) ways of administering a decedents estate in probate:
At Wilson Legal Group, our estate lawyers utilize a team-based approach that benefits from having access to multiple attorneys with substantive years of experience in many practice areas. Whatever your estate or trust needs may be, our business attorneys have the talent, resources, and expertise to meet them in an efficient, timely, and cost-effective manner.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has defined a person's estate as the fair market value of everything a person owns at the time of your death minus debts. The totality of a person's estate would include but is not limited to the following: bank accounts, stocks and bonds, real estate, business interests and property, personal property, and life insurance policies. Items like cars, jewelry, coin collections, and artwork would be considered personal property for the purposes of a last will and testament; however, the proceeds of life insurance would not be personal property as they can only pass through the beneficiary designated on the insurance policy.
A limited number of assets can bypass probate, skip the court-managed process entirely, and go directly to pre-named beneficiaries. The following asset types do not pass through probate and transfer pursuant to their own beneficiary designations: pension plans, life insurance proceeds, 401k plans, health or medical savings accounts, and individual retirement accounts (IRA). In the event any property was jointly owned with a right of survivorship or property was already held in a trust, it generally not be administered by the court. It will pass directly to the joint owner. Further examples of assets that do no go through probate include the following:
Will or no will, probate is necessary in all cases. The Texas Probate Code requires that the division of decedent's assets be divided pursuant to law and titles passed in accordance with either a will or state intestacy laws in the event is no will. It is a common myth that probate is optional.
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The law office of Wilson Legal Group P.C. (d/b/a Wilson Whitaker Rynell) represents clients nationwide, including Dallas, Austin, Houston, and other Texas areas such as Fort Worth, Arlington, Carrollton, Plano, Allen, Lewisville, Flower Mound, Irving, Denton, McKinney, North Richland Hills, and all cities within Dallas County, Tarrant County, Collin County, and Denton County.
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