Video Transcript:

Hey, everyone, Kyle Robbins here with the law offices of Kyle Robbins.

I just wanted to take a minute and answer a question that I get all the time. What the heck is probate? So probate, simply put, is the process of transferring your things to your loved ones. There is a probate court and the probate judge across the state of Texas in every single county. And when someone passes away, whether they have a will or don’t, going through the probate court system is how we transfer their things like their home, their vehicles, their bank accounts, to their loved ones.

If you don’t have a will, it’s a bit of a nightmare. It takes a long time, sometimes years, costs many thousands of dollars because what we have to do is we have to prove who gets the things, who the family members are. And there are default roles in Texas. It’s really convoluted. And the burden is on us to show who the family is so that way we know that we’re transferring the assets to the right people.

The much better way to go through probate is with a will. If you have a will, you still have to hire a probate lawyer and bring it in front of the judge and the judge will then appoint an executor. Basically, that’s the person who’s in control of the assets. And their job is to go take control of everything, sell it if we need to and then give it to the loved ones just like the will says it should be done. So simply put, probate is the process of transferring your assets to your loved ones after you pass away.

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