Jill Mastroianni
speaker
152 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2026
last heard 23 May
Jill Mastroianni’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
where people think that probate has to be avoided because it's either extremely expensive, extremely long, or just extremely onerous.
There are states where, for example, an attorney or an executor can charge fees based on the value.
of a probate estate.
So in California, if you own a home and that goes through probate, you're gonna be paying a percentage of the value of that house.
And that's not taking into account the mortgage.
It's not lessened by the amount of the mortgage.
It's the fair market value of the house.
You're gonna be paying fees based on that value.
Yes, I would say avoid probate in California if you can, because you don't wanna pay a fee just based on how much you own.
But here in Michigan or even in Tennessee where I practice, I don't find probate to be all that difficult.
And most people, even if their goal is to avoid probate, even if they've paid astronomical amounts for estate planning documents with the intent to avoid probate,
they actually don't do all the necessary steps to avoid probate, like funding the trust, keeping it funded if they buy something new, putting that in the trust.
So they're not going to avoid probate anyway.
I think it's a bit of a marketing tool, to be honest.
If you're going to end up going through probate anyway, just go through probate, except if you live in a state like California, maybe Florida, where it's a really big deal and it costs a lot of money.
Sure.
And I would say that with revocable trust, and we just talked about it as a probate avoidance tool, I also like revocable trust for individuals who are older and perhaps are having their children participate more in their finances and their care.
I have found just from a practical standpoint that if you have someone serving as trustee of a revocable trust, institutions are far more likely to accept that trust document and the trustee's authority than they might be to accept another document, which is a power of attorney, which gives someone the authority to make financial decisions for you or with a health care power of attorney.
to make health care decisions for you.
But the revocable trust can be a tool not just for probate avoidance, but for administrative ease for adult children and their parents.
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