Why Your Pour-Over Will Won’t Avoid Probate

You created a revocable trust to avoid probate. So why did your attorney also give you a Will?

That Will is a pour-over Will, designed to catch assets that are still in your individual name when you die and direct them into your trust. But there’s an important catch: those assets have to go through probate first.

In this episode, Jill explains how pour-over Wills actually work, why creating a trust and funding a trust are two very different things, and how the way you own each individual asset determines whether it will avoid probate.

The takeaway? If avoiding probate is your goal, don’t just ask, “Do I have a trust?” Ask, “What happens to each of my assets when I die?”