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still do wills is because it is big business and
not particularly complicated; just expensive
and time consuming. It is likely that more than
seventy percent of the wills that get probated
are probated by the person who drafted the
will. If you were to combine the fees associated
with drafting the simple will and probating the
estate, the attorney gets more legal fees,
normally by a “long shot,” than had the
attorney done a revocable living trust and
avoided probate altogether.
If you have a million-dollar estate, half of it
from your personal wealth and half of it from
life insurance, you can expect to spend
$44,000, at the approximate national average
(estimated by
https://www.thebalance.com/how-much-
does-probate-cost-3505268 to be 3%-8%), to
probate that estate. If you use a revocable living
trust, you completely bypass probate thus
saving the expenses of probate. While there is
still some estate administration costs
associated with a revocable living trust, they
are normally far less than the comparable cost
of probating the estate.
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