As CEO of ProbateCash, LLC, and also as an attorney who is a member of the Florida Bar’s Real Estate, Probate, and Trust Law section, I quickly learned two important issues about pending probate cases. First, your law firm’s clients and beneficiaries of estates rarely understand the probate process or even know probate was necessary to access the assets of their loved ones who passed away. Second, those same people who retain your law firm to open the probate case often flood your firm with frequent phone calls to demand the probate case quickly conclude notwithstanding it may be months away from the estate assets being distributed. For better or for worse, I would wager that paralegals are often on the front line, having to take those phone calls, emails, or other communications and have little practical information to appease their concerns, frustrations, or imminent financial needs.
ProbateCash was founded because we identified those issues and quickly learned that heirs to estates were unprepared to deal with the probate process. As a natural result, these heirs to estates were scared, frustrated, angry, and often desperate for the inheritance that they thought they would receive immediately after the passing of loved ones. Although the newly (or not so new) probate lawyer likely explained the probate process and the length of time the process often took due to the court process, claims period, notices, sale of assets, and other factors, the heirs nonetheless feel (and often are) helpless. Therefore, ProbateCash became a practical tool for law firms to use to help those heirs to estates who need to access cash in days, not many months, or even years.
The process is simple. ProbateCash makes non-recourse advances so heirs can receive money today in exchange for a portion of the heir’s inheritance. The advance is NOT a loan, so there’s no credit check, no collateral, no monthly payments, and no interest rates. As a result, ProbateCash can pay the advances in as few hours as possible. While the heirs can repay the advance and fee anytime, ProbateCash is prepared to wait for repayment when the court orders the estate assets to be distributed.
ProbateCash only enters into a contract with the heir to the estate who is receiving the advance. Nobody else who is a part of the estate needs to sign any documents, make any representations, or participate, including the personal representative of the estate if one has received the Letters. In short, an advance to one heir to an estate does not affect any of the other heirs who are not assigning their inheritance. Moreover, an advance to one or more heirs to the estate will not affect the law firm representing the estate nor delay the actual probate process.
As paralegals who are working on the probate case and communicating with your client, the personal representative, knowing the service that ProbateCash provides finally gives you an opportunity to give practical information to the anxious heirs who are blowing up your phone or email. Instead of having to constantly explain the court’s move slowly or repeat the probate process to your client or the other heirs to the estate, you can finally refer those people to ProbateCash to explore whether an advance against their inheritance is right for them. Once the immediate financial pressure is relieved, heirs can finally relax. Once relaxed, they do not have to bombard your office or the personal representative with repeated phone calls when you have no new information to share with them.
Finally, advances often make sense for the estate, which, of course, benefits the heirs. For example, the primary, if not the sole, asset of the estate is real property that must be sold. Besides dealing with the lengthy probate process, it usually takes time and money to prepare the estate property for sale. The estate property often requires repairs or renovations so that fair market value can be obtained in the sale. When the estate property needs some repairs combined with heirs who are anxious to receive their inheritance, there is usually pressure for the personal administrator to quickly sell the property. That’s an invitation for cash buyers who will pay far below the market value, thus depriving all of the beneficiaries of the full value of their respective inheritance. An advance from ProbateCash to prepare the estate property for sale can mean the difference of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in the purchase price, money that should go to your client and the estate’s beneficiaries as opposed to a cash buyer.
You can visit our website, www.probatecash.com, to learn more about non-recourse advances to heirs to an estate. Please view our webinars and don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions. The next time you talk to your client or other beneficiaries of the estate who are anxious to receive their inheritance, you can now provide them with ProbateCash as a practical option.
To learn more about ProbateCash, you can check out my other blogs.
