Probate Services

Park Ridge Probate & Estate Administration Lawyers

Our probate attorneys assist executors and administrators of wills and estates to ensure that the process goes smoothly and that the executor or administrator has no remaining personal liability after the process is completed. The probate attorneys at John J. Pembroke & Associates also assist with filing estate and final income taxes.

An executor or administrator of an estate in Illinois has a multiplicity of duties: including marshalling assets, doing an inventory, doing a final accounting, and distributing the assets to heirs in accordance with the controlling document: whether that document is a will or a trust. If there is no will or trust, the assets are distributed under Illinois' law of intestate succession.

Probate generally takes eight to nine months, at a minimum, and can last much longer if the will is contested. Many people view probate as a necessary evil. However, it can be a benefit and a comfort. Many of our wealthy clients choose to have at least some of their assets go through the probate process because it provides a court-supervised forum to resolve family disputes over who gets what. Probate also allows estates to cut off potential creditor claims sooner than in an estate controlled by a trust.

Estate administration includes assets that need to go through the probate process (those assets controlled by a will) as well as non-probate assets such as trusts, life insurance benefits, and property owned in joint tenancy. While probating of wills is a public process, the administration of non-probate assets can be done privately at the same time as probate administration.

If the estate contains hard-to-value assets, such as businesses and real estate, our attorneys will advise you to retain enough assets to pay any additional taxes if the value is challenged by the IRS. Since the executor or administrator is personally liable for estate taxes, you will want to retain enough money from the estate to pay any additional taxes that are owed.

We invite you to contact probate attorney John Pembroke to schedule a consultation.