The neighbor, Joann, was a widow with no children. Joann's will specified that all of her assets would go to Sarah's dad and ...

Finding a valid will years later begs the question: is it too late? Let's imagine Sarah. While going through some old papers, ...

Probate, often feared and misunderstood, is a court-supervised process that settles a deceased person's debts and distributes assets according to their will or state law. The concerns around probate ...

Probate is a largely misunderstood but generally feared concept. Over half of the respondents to a recent study said that they have no idea about the costs involved in probate, and that they perceive ...

When planning for the transfer of assets after death, two terms come up often: probate and trust. Probate is the court-supervised process of validating a will, paying debts and distributing assets to ...

Your 401(k) doesn’t just disappear when you die. Here’s how it’s transferred, who gets it, the tax impact, and why beneficiary updates matter more than you think.