Sarah S. Shepard - Estate Planning Blog - SSS LAW: Huntsville Estate Planning

To avoid ancillary probate, put your out-of-state property in a funded revocable living trust while you are living: sign the trust, then deed the house, lake house or land to yoursel...

Probating a will in Alabama has no single price. The cost is the sum of a few parts: court fees, a newspaper notice to creditors, any bond premium and appraisals, and the lawyer's and accountant's fees. The executor can also take pay, which Alabama caps for ordinary services at 2.5 percent of the property re...

If your loved one lived in another state but owned a house or land in Alabama, that property usually needs its own Alabama probate case, called ancillary probate (or ancillary administration). When the will has already been probated where your loved one lived, Alabama admits it on an authenticated copy from ...

If you are the executor named in a will, you can sell the house during probate in Alabama once the probate court appoints you. You usually need one of two kinds of permission: an express power of sale in the will (a clause that clearly lets the executor sell estate property), or the court's approval (Ala. Co...

If you have been named successor trustee of a loved one's trust in Alabama, your first job is to learn exactly what the trust says and protect its property, before anything is sold or given out. Property the trust owns, or that is payable to it, generally avoids probate, but