Video: How Do You Start Probate?

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Hi, I’m Sarah Siedentopf. I’m an estate planning and probate attorney in Atlanta, Georgia. Someone near you has passed away and you’ve been told that you need to “do probate.” How do you get that started? The way you get probate started is by filing a probate petition. You have to file it in the probate court for the county that the deceased was living in. There’s one specific probate petition if there was a will. There’s a different one if there was not a will. But, you file the probate petition and what you’re getting from the judge is called Letters Testamentary. The Letters Testamentary are the things that you need to start probate. Probate is the process of gathering up all of the assets of the deceased, paying any bills, and then distributing the assets that are left to the people who are supposed to get them. The way you get this started is by filing the probate petition. So, if you need to do probate, you need to get a court order that will allow you to deal with the bank, deal with the mortgage holder, deal with any and people who hold assets of the deceased. So, if you need to do probate, you need to file a probate petition. If you have any questions, I’d be more than happy to talk to you. Thanks. © Sarah Siedentopf and Siedentopf Law, 2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Siedentopf Law and EstateLawAtlanta.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.