Connecticut Probate

After You Are Gone, Who Gets Your Stuff?

Probate is the public process of filing and validating a will in court, publication to creditors, paying all the debts and taxes of deceased person, and dividing up the assets according to the will or Connecticut law.

The Connecticut law of intestate succession provides who will inherit your property. Generally, if you are married and have no children, or have no surviving children at the time of your death, all of your property passes to your spouse.

If no one is qualified to claim your estate under any rules, your intestate estate passes to the State of Connecticut. For that reason and that reason alone you need to consider who your estate and how it will pass after you are gone.

For the most part, if you do not have a surviving spouse, your property then passes to your descendants. If you do not have any descendants, to your parents. If you are not survived by any descendants or parents, then to the descendants of your parents. If you do not have any surviving descendants, parents or descendants of your parents, then to your grandparent(s) if they survive you, and if they do not survive you, to your grandparents’ descendants.

Estate planning covers the transfer of property at death as well as a variety of other personal matters that may or may not involve tax planning.

Your ability to direct who gets what is significantly impaired if you do not plan ahead.