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Your father dies on a Tuesday. The funeral home wants a deposit by Friday. The estate has money. It is just locked behind a probate process that has not even started yet. So you are left with a brutal question at the worst possible moment: who is supposed to pay for this? The short answer … Read more
The person who created the trust has died, and you have just learned that you are the successor trustee. The moment the grantor passed away, a living trust that was revocable for the grantor’s entire life became irrevocable, and you stepped into a legal role with real duties and real deadlines. Here is the honest … Read more
Your Letters of Authority just came through. Maybe the envelope from the probate court is still sitting unopened on the kitchen counter. Either way, you are now the personal representative of a Michigan estate, and the legal clock started the moment the court appointed you. Here is the short version. You will not finish probate … Read more
Someone you love has died. You are grieving and exhausted, and somehow a list is already forming. Who do I call? What has to happen today? Is there money to protect, or paperwork to find? Here is the reassuring part. In the first hours after a death in Michigan, almost nothing legal is a true … Read more
Your parent just died. The funeral home needs a deposit. The mortgage is due next week. You know your mom’s checking account has money in it, and you know her PIN. So you drive to the ATM, or you log into her online banking, and you move the money before the bank finds out. It … Read more
You’ve been together for fifteen years. You share a house, a bank account, and two kids. Your neighbors call you husband and wife. Your families treat you as married. Surely, by now, Michigan considers you married – right? No. Not even close. Michigan abolished common law marriage effective January 1, 1957. It doesn’t matter how … Read more
When someone you love passes away, the last thing you want to hear is that you’ll need to spend months navigating probate court. The good news: if the estate is modest – $50,000 or less (adjusted annually for inflation) – Michigan law offers two streamlined alternatives that can save your family significant time, stress, and … Read more
When someone you love dies, the legal system doesn’t wait for you to catch your breath. Bills keep arriving. Bank accounts get frozen. The mortgage company wants answers you don’t have yet. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, someone tells you that you need to “open probate.” For Oakland County families, that … Read more
Washtenaw County residents tend to be planners. You research school districts before buying a house. You max out retirement contributions. You carry the right insurance. But here’s the gap in that otherwise meticulous preparation: roughly half of American adults don’t have a basic estate plan – and Ann Arbor professionals are no exception. The consequences … Read more
A Shelby Township couple owns a home worth $350,000, holds retirement accounts, and has two kids under 12. One of them dies unexpectedly without a trust in place. That house – the one they spent years paying off – is now tied up in Macomb County Probate Court at 40 N. Main Street in Mount … Read more