Issues With Owning Out of State Property

If you own real property in more than one state, additional planning requirements are necessary during the Probate process.

Unless special arrangements have previously been made, when a person passes away with property in more than one state, the personal representative of the deceased will have to initiate Probate proceedings in State where the deceased person lived, and then they will be required to initiate an ancillary probate in each other state where the deceased person owned other properties.

The requirement to initiate ancillary probates can substantially increase the cost of administering one’s estate when he or she passes away.

If you own property in more than one state, creating a Living Trust or Family Trust not only avoids probate in the state where the deceased person lived, but they also avoid the requirement of ancillary probates in the others states.

In most cases, the cost of creating a trust is minimal when compared to the cost of having to administer an estate in multiple states.