Probate(Estate Administration)

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I can no longer count the number of times I’ve received a phone call, email or text asking me to help someone get a “short form”.  What I realize they are really asking for is a document called a “Short Certificate“.  After someone dies and probate has started the person in charge receives a Short Certificate from the county Register of Wills proving that the person in charge can collect and transfer the deceased’s property – bank accounts, boats, cars, houses, motorcycles, retirement plan, etc.

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A lot of people seem to view probate as a bad word, mostly due to a misconception of what probate is and what it is not.  I am not going to go through an entire legal overview of probate on this page.  Quite simply probate is the process of collecting a deceased person’s former property and distributing that property to those entitled to it including creditors and heirs.  Ultimately probate is a fair and orderly process under the law and there is nothing inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’ about probate.  

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If there is a Will then the probate process ensures the Will is valid and should be the final say on what happens with the estate property.  If there was no valid Will then the process is generally referred to as estate administration – still under the supervision of the court but with less specific guidance than a Will typically provides, particularly with respect to the disposition of estate property.

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