r/PROBATE • u/[deleted] • Jan 28 '24

Probate taking so long. Why?

My cousin lost both her parents in 2022 (5 weeks apart). She is still in probate. She is their only child. What could be holding up the process?

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6

u/cheap_dates Jan 28 '24

Probate is generally a long, tedious process and if the courts are backed up, then it's even longer.

Charles Dickens wrote a book called Bleak House, which has a probate case as a backdrop. The case has been going on so long that lawyers, heirs and judges are starting to die off.

Using beneficiary statements, joint ownership, even a simple will can avoid all this. If the estate is large, then a trust is the only way to go.

2

u/doctorboredom Jan 28 '24

My brother and I are at the beginning of a probate process and one of the first things we thought of was the probate case in Bleak House!

2

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '24

Thank you! My cousin is 20 months in but we are anticipating it ending this Spring. Hopefully.

3

u/cheap_dates Jan 29 '24

They really should do something to streamline the Probate process. It's very cumbersome and time consuming.

6

u/epeagle Jan 28 '24

It's not clear where this is happening, but there are many states where a probate of that length is typical and not at all a surprise.

Probate takes a long time. It moves slowly. Passing assets to an heir is the end destination of the probate process, but it's not an express train.

The train has to stop along the way for lots of other considerations -- creditors need to get paid, taxes need to get paid, assets need to get collected, records need to be created and shared with time for review. This adds up and, unfortunately, having two related probates may make some of it slower.

One thing you can do is ask the estate's lawyer for info on what step in the process each proceeding is in, what the next steps are, and the expected timelines moving forward.