The question you’re really asking is, “What happens to the will after a loved one or friend passes away?”
Probate is the legal process in which a will is authenticated. The purpose is to:
- Identify the assets and debts of the descendent (or deceased)
- Pay the debts
- Distribute any remaining assets according to state law and the provisions of the will.
Here is more important information on Probate…
Probate involves a number of required forms, including 90-day and annual inventories, and a series of deadlines that must be met. The executor of the will is responsible for filing, meeting those deadlines, and distributing the property appropriately. In North Carolina, the will is probated in the county in which the individual decedent died, under the jurisdiction of that county’s clerk of court.
North Carolina statutes determine the types of assets and debts involved in probate, as well as the order in which debts must be repaid and assets distributed. North Carolina law allows the spouse of the decedent to receive a spousal allowance of $30,000; the decedent’s minor child has an allowance of $5,000. These two allowances trump all other creditors attempting to have debts paid by the estate.
Not all of the decedent’s property is distributed through the probate process. Some property passes outside of probate such as life insurance benefits and retirement accounts which have a named beneficiary. These assets go directly to the recipient. However, if an asset does not have a beneficiary listed, it is included in the inventory of assets in the probate process. Accounts in the decedent’s sole name are the assets used first to pay a debt. For the most part, surviving relatives are responsible for decedent’s debts only if these were joint debts.