Why should I have an estate plan? What’s the difference between an estate plan and a probate?

People ask me every day why they should have an estate plan. An estate plan is a revocable trust or pour-over will. Your trust will say where to put everything, it will hold your assets and other documents that surround that including a healthcare directive. If someone dies without an estate plan, they’ll have what’s called probate. Probate goes to court, takes time, costs money, and could have been easily avoided with an estate plan. A simple revocable trust is a set of documents that state who you want to take over as successor trustee and how you want your assets to be distributed. This is especially popular among younger people as it’s quick and simple to do, and it solves the problem of avoiding probate.