Cary, NC Estate Planning Attorneys

A trust is a legal arrangement where you (the grantor) give a trustee the authority to hold and manage your assets for the people you choose (your beneficiaries). You can use a trust to control how and when your assets are distributed, avoid probate, protect privacy, and plan for incapacity. The most common type in estate planning is the revocable living trust, which you control during your lifetime and can change at any time. After you pass away, the assets in your trust transfer directly to your beneficiaries without going through probate court.

If you die without a will in North Carolina, you’re considered to have died intestate, and state law decides who inherits your property. The North Carolina Intestate Succession Act distributes your assets to your closest relatives in a set order, starting with your spouse and children. That means the state’s formula controls who gets what, not your personal wishes, and the court appoints an administrator to handle your estate. If you have no locatable heirs, your property can ultimately pass to the state. A will lets you make these decisions yourself instead of leaving them to a statute.

No. A will does not avoid probate. In fact, a will is the document that directs the probate process. When you pass away with a will, the court validates it, appoints your executor, and oversees the payment of debts and the distribution of your assets, all through probate. If your goal is to avoid probate, the common tools are a revocable living trust, beneficiary designations on accounts, and joint ownership with right of survivorship. A will works alongside these tools but doesn’t replace them.

Yes. A revocable living trust can be changed, updated, or completely revoked at any time while you’re alive and mentally competent. You can add or remove assets, change your beneficiaries, or name a different trustee as your life circumstances change. This flexibility is the main reason revocable trusts are so widely used. An irrevocable trust, by contrast, generally cannot be changed once it’s created, which is the tradeoff for the added asset protection and tax benefits it can offer.

In North Carolina, probate costs start with a $120 filing fee to open the estate, plus a court fee of 0.4% of the estate’s personal property value (40 cents per $100), capped at a maximum of $6,000. On top of the court costs, most families also pay attorney fees, which typically range from about $2,000 to $10,000 depending on the size and complexity of the estate, along with other expenses like the required newspaper notice to creditors and possible executor commissions. All of these costs are paid from the estate itself. Proper planning, such as a revocable living trust, can reduce or avoid many of them.