PROBATE
Probate is the Court supervised administration of a person’s Estate if an individual died leaving only a Will, or no documentation at all.
The Probate process begins after a death with someone being appointed by the Court to be the Personal Representative of the Estate (also known as the Executor or Administrator of the Estate). If the deceased person had a Will, they probably named someone within the document as the Executor. That individual will file a Petition with the Probate Court, to admit the Will to Court supervision and to be appointed as the Executor. When the deceased person had no Will, they died "intestate” and California law provides who can be appointed as the Administrator, usually a family member.
Once appointed, the Personal Representative will collect the assets, identify creditors, file all required tax returns, pay the debts and liabilities of the deceased person, and eventually, with Court approval, distribute the remaining Estate assets, either under the terms of the Will, but if none, then as required by California law.
Unlike administering the person’s assets through a Revocable Living Trust, the Probate process is a public record, it is expensive and due to the volume of cases that pass through the Probate Court, especially in Southern California and in Los Angeles County, the Estate administration will most likely take twelve to eighteen months.
As to the cost of a Probate administration, the fees to both the Personal Representative and their attorney are set by the State of California, based upon the gross value of the Estate, not the net after expenses are paid. As an example, in a $500,000 Estate both the Personal Representative and the Attorney will be paid fees of $13,000 and for a $1,000,000 Estate the fees will be $23,000 each. On top of those fees, the Court costs and administrative fees generally run around $2,000.
Yes, a Probate administration is expensive and very time consuming, you can avoid it by working with an attorney to create a properly executed Estate Plan.