Probate is a term used to describe the legal process upon your passing if you have not placed your assets into some sort of a trust.  In other words, while you are alive, if you have not created some sort of revocable or irrevocable trust, then most likely upon your passing, somebody will be designated to ensure your assets are distributed in the probate process.  

Probate is not private because it is done in the courts, and most everything in the court system is a matter of public information, i.e., any individual can go to county courthouses and ask the clerk to view another person's court file, including a deceased person's probate case file.  For example, you could pick up the local newspaper, look at the obituaries, discover that "John Doe" had recently passed away.  From there, you could go to the local county courthouse and ask the clerk to see "John Doe's" probate case file. 

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Presuming that John Doe died without some sort of a trust in place, then most likely his estate would be subject to probate.  If John Doe died with a will, and his estate was subject to probate, then his will would be in the probate file in the court clerk's office.  Anyone can read the will, determine who his beneficiaries are, including his family members, and perhaps in one of the most embarrassing situations, also determine which persons John Doe wanted to keep from receiving his assets. 

 

On more than one occasion I have had clients ask me to draft them a will including a provision to only give one dollar to a certain individual.  Is this something that you want to be a matter of public record in the court system?  If your estate can avoid probate, the distribution of your assets can be a private matter, rather than public.

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Had John Doe placed his assets into a trust, then he may have been able to avoid the probate process, and the distribution of his assets would have been kept private.  I can help you determine if a trust is right for you.  I often charge a flat fee for drafting a trust.