Lee R. Schroeder is an Ohio licensed attorney with Schroeder Law LLC in Ottawa. He limits his practice to business, real estate, estate planning and agriculture issues in northwest Ohio. He can be reached at lee@leeschroeder.com or at (419) 523-5523. This article is not intended to serve as legal advice, and specific advice should be sought from the licensed attorney of your choice based upon the specific facts and circumstances that you face.
Probate is how the law is set up to make sure that a deceased person’s bills are paid and that their remaining assets go where they were intended to go by the deceased person. When someone dies, it presents an opportunity for someone to either steal or misinterpret their intentions. A way to understand probate is to think of the two people who will represent the deceased after they die. The first person is the probate judge, who could be thought of as the person’s brain. The second person is the executor or administrator, who could be thought of as the arms and legs in actually moving ownership or possession.
Both late night television and the internet tell people that the only thing worse than dying is going through probate. The truth is not so black and white, especially here in our part of Ohio.
When someone dies, that person is obviously no longer able to make sure that his or her bills are paid or that any assets left after bills are paid will go to whom the deceased person wanted. Therefore, a person’s death may present a prime opportunity for some people to simply steal from the deceased person or otherwise (perhaps even unintentionally) misinterpret what the deceased person intended.
Read more about what it means to go through probate in the state of Ohio in Lee’s article in the Lima News here: Legal Ease: Going through probate
Source: LimaOhio.com, “Legal Ease: Going through probate,” by Lee R. Schroeder, May 28, 2016