or could be called the fleecing of citizens by government and lawyers.

your spouse dies and everyone puts their hand out

cheap funeral home expenses 5K
I caught the funeral home over charging me , pointed it out to the owner and at least he cut me a check for the 1k his son over charged me from the written estimate he had given me , I had contested it at the time I was cutting the check that the 995 dollar cremation fee was quoted in the estimate of 5K.
but it took me finding that document a month later and showing it to them to get my money back.

today was the register of deeds , I called a month or so ago and told them what I needed , bring my death certificate and deed down and they could help me
get there and no they couldn't I needed to file with the department of revenue and have a legal document drafted to be able to make the change , they asked if I had a lawyer , yes , great what is this going to cost me , went to the lawyers office , 350 .

make sure you are leaving your family 10K just to pay the vultures

there is probably some better way , I am wondering if putting everything in a corporation would make more sense so that the kids don't need to go through this and probate when I die.
I just called to see if that makes more sense than paying twice.

I am sure it will cost me more it always does.

all the fun death taxes , county death tax , state death tax , I mean they call them licenses for cremation , death certificates , filing fees , transfer fees.

that is my rant for today

at least he calls back in a timely manner

have to do this document first before anything else can happen , then other options can be discussed.

probate is 0.2% so avoiding it likely costs more than paying it

Sounds like it’d be cheaper just to pretend you are still alive and use your stuff as they need it.

What a horrid thing for someone grieving to go through. This screwy world is ridiculous

Do a trust and there is no probate I thought?

For some reason many folks don't plan at all for their certain death, it sure makes it complicated for the survivors.

About two years before my dad's death we met with an attorney to look over the trust documents that my dad had created a few years before.
The attorney was sitting across the table from us. After about 15 minutes of him reading through the trust, he pushed the documents back across the table, he pointed out several problems with the trust and said, "this is a mess, if you pass away and this trust is what you are relying on for the settlement of your estate it will require about $30,000 of legal work to straighten it out".

He charged us $1500 to prepare some documents to record, and to supplant the Trust, and arrange for a transfer of his monetary assets without going through probate.
My dad's estate was settled within about 30 days of his death.

Most estates can be taken care of very easily if just a little pre-planning takes place.

For example; in most States if you own any real estate and you die, the estate must go through probate, EVEN if you have a Will. This takes time and legal expenses. In most States the way around this is to prepare and record a "Transfer Upon Death Dead". This automatically transfers real estate upon death once the local recorders office gets a death certificate. Also, the recipient of the real estate get the advantage of a stepped-up cost basis of the property. This deed can also be rescinded or changed at any time before death if the person so wishes.

Cash accounts, stock holdings can also be prearrange with the particular brokerage firms that will allow for a very fast and simple transfer of monetary assets.

These two examples I've given can even be done without a Will, although a Will may still be advisable for the distribution of personal items.

Don't try to deny death, it is inevitable.

The individuals I talked to at the VA were the worst deceptive POS people I ever encountered when closing out my Father's and Brothers' stuff. Fortunately for me, I read thousands of spec sheets and its given me an ability to skim through docs and find information fast. Was told multiple times "No available benefits" ; yet I found the forms and requirements. Filed them anyways and in a few weeks, they were paid. Can only imagine how many families of Vets are screwed by the VA.

Guessing it was about 6-8 years ago, Wisconsin mandated the deed transfers through the Dept of Rev via the etransfer system. Crap load of questions to fill out and a few things on there to easily make mistakes on. They give you something like 9 options to select from for deed transfer. I need to remove a Lifetime estate granted on a property I owned PRIOR. No option for that. The etransfer requires the COMPLETE legal description of the deeded property. Going to the GIS map or any of the municipality records only gives you the abbreviated version. Title company when you do the original purchase of land or a house will have it. I had copies for my property. Family members I closed estates for didn't, but going back to their title company was a huge help. Most pulled the full description and emailed it to me.

Dealing with a few cooperatives (electric, LP gas, telephone....) sure can be a complete pain too. Any coop that has capital holdings (dividends) require court documents following probate to transfer capital assets. Try that when when the estate is valued under $20K and there is NO PROBATE. I found a document online from a coop somewhere out east. Revised the heading and some verbiage and it works great. But for those that don't know that can easily spend $$$$$ with attorney fees for getting pennies on the dollar. Another joke was coop's paying the dividends back on annuities. $2000 of holdings paid back of 10 or 20 years at $5 per month or take a $375 immediate pay out.

Best system I can see for middle aged adults is to work with a good estate planner and transfer a small amount of ownership to your kids every year. Keep the gift amount below the taxable threshold.

The biggest problem with death is no one likes to talk about it and plan for it. I'm at that age now that nearly all my friends' parents are gone, friends, brothers, sisters, and sadly some of their kids have passed. Being the one they look to forced me to learn more than I care to know about death, probate, asset transfers....Have a plan!

Around here, to put an obit in the local newspaper weekend edition is around $1200. One would think its just part of the local news, honoring a local citizen who passes on.

I think Obit's are now their primary revenue stream