What happens during a probate in Colorado?
If you have had a family member pass away recently, you may have learned that you will need to complete a probate process. What is probate? It is the court-supervised process for settling the debts and transferring the assets of a person who has passed away. In Colorado, a probate process has to be initiated if the person who passed away had more than $50,000 (adjusted annually for inflation; it's up to $70,000 as I write this in 2022), or real estate.
This threshold only includes assets that were titled to the decedent by him- or herself, without a surviving co-owner, and which assets did not have designated beneficiary instructions attached. Assets titled to a trust or business being run by the decedent do not count towards these totals (although the business itself could be part of the estate if it did not have a co-owner and did not have any documentation directing otherwise). If your loved one did not have this amount of assets, you may be able to collect any assets or accounts using a small estate affidavit .
In the following videos, Denver estate planning attorney Dan McKenzie of The McKenzie Law Firm, LLC (303-578-2745, www.themckenziefirm.com) summarizes the process of opening and completing a probate case.
What Next?
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- Get a copy of our estate planning checklist to see where you currently stand.
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