Everyone today is terrfied of “probate.” Read more about how probate works here.

But why is everyone so scared of probate, and is it that bad? And if so, how do you avoid it?

The whole “probate-bad” narrative can be solely attributed to a Connecticut financial advisor named Norman Dacey.

In 1965, Dacey self published a book called “How to avoid Probate!” He actually got in trouble for giving out legal advice as a financial advisor.

During that time, Connecticut probate courts had three separate taxes on estates, the gift, estate, and succession (inheritance) taxes. As you can see from the following chart, 1965 was the height of Connecticut estate taxes, meaning when you died you had to pay a tax out of your estate.

It’s no wonder Dacey hated probate. As a financial advisor he saw many of his clients get wrapped up in a system that had three different tax mechanisms!

His clients would spend time in probate and end up paying a lot of taxes on their estates.

As a result, Dacey advocated for clients to create trusts. Lawyers in turn were happy to hop on the trust bandwagon because they can charge WAYYY more for a trust than a will. Trusts typically start at around $2,500 while a will usually starts at around $500.

Today though, Connecticut has eliminated the expensive estate tax system. Now, if your estate is worth under $9.1 Million, there are NO taxes, at all. There are some probate fees but they are often minimal.

If you want to calculate probate fees you can do so with CT’s probate calculator here. Below is a chart of the fees. The left column represents the monetary size of your estate and the right column shows what fees you pay. For example, if you die with 0-$500 the fee is $5… $1,000 – $10,000 the fee is $50, and so forth. Read below.

Dacey’s book was one of the best selling self published books of all time, and it convinced America that probate is bad and everyone should get a trust to avoid it.

But is probate really that bad?

Before thinking about things in black and white terms, good or bad, we need to ask what is the purpose of probate? It exists for a reason, right? The state didn’t create probate courts with the purpose of being an uneccessary pain in the ass in mind.

The rationale behind probate is this: When people die, their heirs more often than not fight over their estates. That’s just how it is. You may have the nicest kids on the block and you may swear that they’ll never ever fight over your assets, but trust me, when moneys on the table people change.

EVERYBODY says their heirs won’t fight over their assets and inevitably they always do.

So, probate’s real purpose is to account for your assets in front of a neutral decisionmaker (a judge) and give out your assets in the way you’ve instructed the court to do so through a will, (or a trust.)

Trusts technically “avoid probate” but not in the way you think of it. In Massachusetts trusts are still subject to the probate court’s jurisdiction, and in Connecticut trusts are also subject to probate court in certain scenarios.

When lawyers say that trusts avoid probate they mean that any assets in a trust pass to the beneficiaries without probate court approval. If there are any issues with the trust language or someone contests it or someone doesn’t trust the trustee, then the probate court, (or in Connecticut maybe the superior court) will get involved.

Either way, EVERYONE who dies has to go through probate. Let me repeat that again. EVERYONE who dies goes through probate. Even if you have all your assets in trusts, even if you’re only worth zero dollars, every dead person goes through probate.

Minus probate fees and lawyer costs you may pay several thousand dollars to go through probate. If you have a few trusts on top of that, your estate plan may end up costing you $10,000.

To save on those costs, I typically advise clients not to get a trust if the only reason is to avoid probate.

Probate is not the nightmare it’s been made out to be. It’s not so much the system or the procedure that makes probate a nightmare, it’s the people.

If your beneficiaries are fighters and if your executor or trustees are lazy and won’t handle your estate, that’s what makes probate a pain int he ass.

All things being equal, if you have executors or trustees who are on top of their game and you have beneficiaries who aren’t going to fight a lot then probate is typically a simple process.

Yes, there are statutory periods that can be annoying – in Connecticut you have to wait 6 months before beneficiaries can get all the assets and in massachusetts you have to wait a year.

That is frustrating, but is it worth it to pay thousands of dollars to avoid it? That’s up to you.

The bottom line: Probate isn’t the nightmare it’s been made out to be, but sometimes it can get chaotic based on your assets and your beneficiaries. For example, owning multiple properties in different states is definitely a pain in the ass to probate. But if you have an executor who is on top of things, it’s not so bad.