Probate Court

I've always heard grand stories, either on television or in books, of people gaining huge inheritances and sums of money after a relative died.  It all sounded so easy.  Someone croaks and gives something super valuable to someone they cared deeply about.  In those stories, there was usually some person who had been unknown to the family, like a mistress or a hidden friend.  

However, I was never aware of the annoying process that goes into wills, mostly because, at my age, there is definitely no need to have one.  I don't own anything halfway decent enough to be passed along and even if there were, I wouldn't know who to give it to.

We were assigned to blog about probate court, which, though it sounds completely boring, can be really important later on in life.  First off, probate sounded completely foreign to me when I started looking this up.  I had never even heard of this word before, but it means "legal acceptance that a document, especially a will, is valid." (I should probably cite this, but I don't know how, so I will just tell you where I found it.  The Credo Reference tool on the University at Albany website)

What happens after someone dies usually involves a court, namely, the probate court.  There, administrators and executors hand out the appropriate objects and properties, and the validity of the will is examined.  For those who don't have a will, they try to figure out where everything should go.  There's really not much else to it.  But the question remains, why is this important, at least, for those who aren't dealing with getting anything?

Let's just say someone died who had been highly influential, but at the same time, highly secretive?  Not only is there a listing of assets, but withstanding charges on bills, taxes, and credit cards also came along.  That right there could be an amazing discovery.  You never know if a forgotten relative or a hidden child could be getting something either.  Things could be found out about people that were never known, giving a clearer insight about them.