Probate Court Woes

We used to think that it was an “old wives tale” that if you ended up in Probate Court the Court would get everything and your heirs would get nothing. I have spent years trying to convince people that that is not typically the case. Unfortunately, I was proven wrong.

In a recent Maricopa County, Arizona Probate Court an 87 year old woman who suffered a stroke and had no estate planning documents in order to address who would care for her during incapacity or who would handle her finances at death, ended up becoming part of the probate court system. Now, 88 years old, she is destitute after a judge approved $786,000 in attorney, guardianship and companion care fees for the woman. How did this happen you ask? Unfortunately, with no family, no estate plan, and no checks and balances in place there were no contingent beneficiaries to account to and no one to question the excessive fees that were charged by the guardianship service approved by the local probate court. In an article by the Arizona Republic the columnist reminds us what we all hope to be true and that is that, “the court that is supposed to be protecting people like Marie Long is doing no such thing”. Instead the court is allowing a cozy group of lawyers and fiduciaries who are appointed to help vulnerable people help themselves to a nice pile of cash – “until the money is gone, at which time the ‘ward’ is dumped onto the tax payers”. As an estate planning attorney I find this behavior appalling and a clear abuse of the system. Unfortunately, people refuse to get their estate plan in order or merely procrastinate because they think they are too young for the type of problems that can occur. As I have always said to my clients, making sure that you have a Revocable Trust is important, because I have never been quoted as saying that “the probate court is your friend”.