PROBATE: "NOT SO BAD IN OUR STATE"

SOURCE: ATTORNEY WILLIAM A. CONWAY AND RECER EXPERIENCE

Attorney William (Bill) Conway practices law in the Washington D.C. area. From time to time, Bill and I get together to discuss estate planning in general and specific cases, in par ticular.

One day we were talking about probate ... and Bill expressed the thoughts found below.

One of the worst features of probate is that there are thousands of so-called professionals, all over America, who shout from the roof tops that "probate ain't all that bad."

Bill said, "Every Attorney says, 'Probate isn't bad in our state; but, in (whatever state is next door) it is a nightmare.'"

I replied that my experience bore out his assertion.

In Philadelphia, one of my Associates attended a meeting where an attorney spoke and said, "Now, probate isn't so bad here in Pennsylvania; but, across the river in New Jersey, ... its bad."

In Maryland, I was working with an attorney and his clients one day and, when the subject of probate came up, he said, "Now, probate isn't so bad here in Maryland; but across the state line in Delaware, ... its bad."

A Virginia lawyer attended one of my seminars in Harrisonburg, Virginia and told me that she thought that I was too harsh on the probate system because "... probate isn't so bad here in Virginia."

She went on to say, "Now, I admit that probate is bad over there in West Virginia. But, here in Virginia ... it's not so bad."

Probate can be a horrendous experience in any state. If your estate is, in any way, complicated, you should consider some form of the plethora of non-probatable estate plans.