2 Reasons To Hire A Probate Attorney

4 June 2017
 Categories: Law, Blog


One of the best assets at your disposal, if you are responsible for carrying out the will of the deceased, loved one and distributing his or her assets is a probate attorney, mostly because he or she can help you deal with the many issues that can often come up during this process. Listed below are two reasons to hire a probate attorney:

Deal With Family Members Contesting The Will

One of the biggest reasons to hire a probate attorney like David R Webb Attorney is to deal with the very complicated issue of family members contesting the will. While it is not very common that an individual does attempt to contest a will or the distribution of assets, it can happen and can lead to some pretty massive problems.

For example, if the person contesting the will takes the issue to court, the assets can end up being tied up for many months or years until the situation is resolved. At that point, so much money will have been spent to pay for all the legal fees that the assets that will be distributed to the beneficiaries can often be a small fraction of what they would have been had the will not been contested in the first place. 

A probate attorney can help you limit the impact of this issue by attempting to negotiate an equitable agreement between the beneficiaries and the individual dispute in the will. In some cases, it might just be a matter of explaining to the individual disputing the will just what was going through the deceased individual's mind when he or she decided to divide the assets the way that he or she did. In addition, the probate attorney can also discuss splitting the assets so that the person disputing the will can potentially be satisfied without taking the issue to court and costing everybody a lot of money.

Deal With Issues Regarding Debts That Were Left Behind

Another reason to hire a probate attorney is in order to deal with issues that can come up if debts were left behind by the deceased individual. In most cases, when an individual passes away, the debts that will need to be paid will often include the medical bills that were racked up before the individual passed away, taxes, and even some business debts. Once all that has been taken out of the state, the rest of the assets will be divided amongst the beneficiaries as stated by the will.

However, the issue that can come up in this situation is if there is not enough money in the estate to pay all of those debts. In that situation, your probate attorney will be able to help you determine which debts must be paid and which debts get priority over the others. Failure to comply with this can lead to a number of fines and even a potential lawsuit from those individuals that should have been paid first when the estate was being dealt with.

Make an appointment with a probate lawyer today in order to discuss how he or she may be able to help you when it comes to distributing the assets of a loved one that has passed away or deal with any complications that have arisen during that process. You will want to hire a probate attorney because they can help you deal with family members contesting the will and issues regarding debts that were left behind.


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