Scott Schomer of the Schomer Law Group discusses the advantages and disadvantages of Probate Administration. For more information, please call (310) 337-7696 or send us a message.
The biggest disadvantages of probate administration are that it is public and it is very expensive and time consuming. As a general rule, it costs between four to eight percent of the gross value of your estate to process an estate through the probate administration process. That includes such things as paying court costs, paying appraisal costs, paying publication costs, also paying the administrator or the executor, and the attorney to work or handle on the case. The second part of it is the delay. Probate in California typically takes about a minimum of about nine months, more frequently a year to a year and a half or longer, depending on the complexity of the estate. At the end of the day, both of these plans require that essentially a lawsuit be filed in the superior court of the county where you die, dealing with both of these issues. And so one of the questions that I always ask my clients is, “why would you want a lawsuit filed for the benefit of your creditors?” It is significantly preferable to handle this privately and outside of the court system.