Christy Bieber has a JD from UCLA School of Law and began her career as a college instructor and textbook author. She has been writing full time for over a decade with a focus on making financial and ...

In presentations regarding essential actions individuals should take regarding inheritance, emphasis is usually placed on drafting a will. This leaves unanswered what happens to assets that do not ...

Julia Kagan is a financial/consumer journalist and former senior editor, personal finance, of Investopedia. Ebony Howard is a certified public accountant and a QuickBooks ProAdvisor tax expert. She ...

Probate is the administrative process used to move official ownership of a deceased person’s possessions, known as assets, to other people. When someone dies having signed a valid will, the probate ...

Probate is the legal process that happens after someone dies. It distributes the assets and pays any debts or taxes. If there's a will, you might wonder if probate is needed. Sometimes, probate is ...

More and more, the bulk of clients' net worth lies in individual retirement accounts (IRAs), 401(k)s, pension plans and insurance products, writes Cynthia D. Hurley. The law deems such assets ...