Probate
We will take the court part off your hands.
When someone dies, a legal process starts whether the family is ready for it or not. We carry it, at whatever pace you can manage, and tell you what has to happen next before it happens.
First, we are sorry for your loss.
If you are reading this soon after a death, you are probably here because someone told you there is paperwork, or a bank asked for something you have never heard of. We hope this page takes at least one unknown off the pile.
Probate in Alabama is a court-supervised process for moving what a person owned to the people entitled to receive it. In Tuscaloosa County, opening a probate is how the following actually gets done:
- Proving that the will is valid.
- Appointing someone to manage the estate: an executor if there is a will, an administrator if there is not.
- Inventorying and appraising the estate property.
- Paying the debts and taxes the estate owes.
- Distributing what is left as the will directs, or as Alabama law directs if there is no will.
What is actually in front of you
Not everything your loved one owned goes through it.
Assets owned in the deceased person’s name alone are the ones subject to probate. Property that passes by title, such as real estate held as joint tenants with right of survivorship or a bank account titled transfer on death, generally does not. Neither does property that passes by beneficiary designation, such as life insurance or many retirement accounts. There are situations where an asset that looks like it passes outside probate ends up inside it anyway, which is worth checking rather than assuming.
So the first real question is not how bad probate will be. It is how much of the estate has to go through it at all. Sometimes the honest answer is almost none of it, and a small estate may qualify for a shorter summary procedure. Sorting that out is usually a short conversation, and it is the conversation we would rather have with you before anyone files anything.
Someone has to start the process. Usually it is the person named in the will as executor, who files the original will and a petition with the probate court. If there is no will, a close relative who expects to inherit typically files instead. If the person named cannot serve or does not want to, any interested family member can ask the court to appoint them as administrator.
If you have been named executor
This is a legal job, and the exposure is yours.
Alabama’s probate code runs to pages of rules and procedures an executor is required to follow, and there are deadlines for filing things with the court. An executor who gets those wrong can be held personally liable for what the estate loses.
Almost nobody named as executor has done it before. That is not a reflection on you, and it is not a reason to be afraid of the role. It is the reason to have someone alongside you who tracks the deadlines and keeps the record straight, so the job does not become one more thing that went wrong this year.
Common questions
What families ask us first
Do we actually have to do this? Can the family not just handle it?
Sometimes there is nothing to open. If everything your loved one owned passed by title or by beneficiary form, there may be no probate estate at all, and we will tell you that on the first call rather than open a file. But if anything was owned in their name alone, it generally cannot be sold, transferred, or closed out until a court appoints someone with authority to do it. That appointment is the thing probate exists to give you.
How long is this going to take?
Longer than anyone wants. A straightforward Alabama probate usually takes at least twelve months, and complicated ones can run to two years or beyond. Much of that is waiting built into the process rather than work sitting on a desk, which is worth knowing so the quiet stretches do not feel like something has gone wrong.
What is this going to cost, and who pays for it?
Legal fees turn on the size and complexity of the estate, and there are court costs, filing fees, certification and recording fees, and appraisal fees on top of them. The personal representative is separately entitled to a statutory fee for serving, and the court can allow more in complicated cases or for extraordinary work. Most of this is paid out of the estate rather than out of your own pocket. We will walk you through the whole picture before you decide anything.
Mom had a trust. Are we still going to end up in probate?
In most cases, no. Assets owned in the name of a trust pass under the trust, and the family can usually be walked through that without the court. What sends trust families into probate anyway is an asset that was never retitled into the trust: the house, a bank account, a piece of land. It happens often, and it is fixable, but it is worth finding out early rather than nine months in.
There was no will. Does the state take everything?
No. Alabama's intestate statutes simply decide for you, in this general order: spouse, then children, then parents if there are no children, then siblings if there are neither. What each of them actually receives depends on who survived, which is one of the first things we work out.
Do we have to use the attorney who wrote the will?
No. Preparing a will does not give a lawyer any claim on the probate, and you are free to bring it to whoever you want to work with. If you already have a lawyer you trust, use them. If you do not, the thing to look for is someone who does this work regularly and will tell you plainly what is happening and what it costs.
Start with a post-death review.
Fifteen minutes, no charge. We will look at what your loved one owned, tell you whether probate is even required, and give you the next step. Nothing has to be decided on the call.