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hey there estate planning attorney paul ramallah here and in this video we're going to talk about what probate letters are and how to get them all right so this has happened to me hundreds and hundreds of times over the years we get a call after somebody passes away let's say mom passes away and we get a call maybe maybe three or four weeks after mom passed away call go something like this mr rabelais i went to mama's you you you fill in the blank i went to mama's bank credit union brokerage firm or maybe even mom's life insurance company if the life insurance proceeds were payable to her estate which is not that unusual but i went to mom's bank credit union brokerage firm and i needed to pay mama's mortgage because mama's mortgage is is past due and i don't want them to foreclose and mama had a couple of credit card bills and now they're calling and i need to pay those bills and i went to mama's bank and i walked in with the with mama's will that showed that i was the executor and i walked in with mama's death certificate i just got those last week and they said that not only would they not give me access to mama's money but they said they wouldn't tell me anything about mama's accounts because i don't really know exactly what mama had she never told me really how many accounts she had i just knew that she banked here and then sometimes you know these kind of frustrated heirs uh you know go on from there and and mr rabbly they were they were completely uncooperative and my mother has has banked at that bank for for the last 40 years and so that when they kind of go on and on i'm like no no no no no no and so then and then they said mr rabelai they they you know they they told me they wouldn't give me any information and i needed to i needed to go see a lawyer and i had to get some some letters and and maybe they scribbled some things that they were told at the bank or the credit union or the brokerage firm and and maybe they'll tell me i need i need some of these letters you know i need these i need these court letters or or they said i needed letters testamentary or letters of administration or some kind of letter from the court or letters of executorship or letters of independent administration letters of independent executorship there could be any number of things that the bank told them that they needed but it all starts with the word letters so some people mistakenly believe that once they hear that at the financial institution they just need to call or go to the lawyer's office and the lawyer then just writes a letter you know one of these dear bank letters please give so and so the money that's not the kind of letters that the bank is talking about you know when you think of a letter you think if it's one of these dear so-and-so letters but that has nothing to do when these financial institutions say they need letters or letters of administration or letters of letters testimony or whatever the case may be so just know that it's not somebody writing a letter now let's kind of break down really what they need and how quite frankly to get things done so the background is you know the financial institutions they want to make darn sure that they're either you know they're releasing information they just can't release someone's financial information just because you asked and they certainly don't want to release any of any of the funds to the people that they shouldn't have released them to because if they release mama's funds to the wrong people guess who's going to pay twice the bank's going to pay twice so the financial institutions and i get it they need to make darn sure that they're releasing funds to the right people so they're they're not just going to rely on you walking in with a death certificate with mama's will whether it's a photocopy or the original and you can't just hold up the will and say look bank here's where in mama's will it says i'm the executor or maybe you say here's where it says in the will that i'm i'm one of the heirs or or i'm the only heir that's not good enough so what i want to go do is go through the the procedure that you have to go through to make things seamless when there's a will and then i'll touch on the procedure that's required when mama for example didn't have a will okay so if mama or whoever had a will this is what you need to do you need to go see a lawyer you may not want to but you need to because it's a complicated court proceeding and you need to show the lawyer you know what the will says and that first contact with the lawyer they either need to see the original will or they're going to need to see a photocopy now granted the original is going to be filed at the courthouse but just for purposes of the first discussion really the attorney needs to see what the will says and and a photocopy of that is okay especially if you're you know you're talking to him on the phone and you can send a scanned version by email so the attorney can quickly review the relevant provisions of the will because he needs to see he needs to make his own determination that it's a valid will he needs to see the exact wording of the executor appointment and other you know appropriate provisions of the will and you know financial firm financial firms before they release any funds to anybody they are going to among other things want to have a judge declare that the will is valid so the attorney's gonna prepare some court pleadings some court paperwork a couple of things in particular that the lawyer is going to prepare is a what's called a petition to probate the will and i realize these terms and the exact procedure may vary from state to state i'm an estate planning lawyer in louisiana but in general it's the same concept so the the judge's office um the the lawyer with all of these petitions and the original will will file all of that at the courthouse it'll make its way to a judge's office and then if the judge's office determines that the will meets all of the formality requirements the judge will sign the initial order that the will is foul is valid at the same time that that is filed at the courthouse the lawyer will likely also prepare a petition to confirm the executor and so part of that of those cart court pleadings included in those court police pleadings is an oath that the executor will sign where the executor union signs a note that they will faithfully perform their duties as the executor so once the judge sees the appropriate pleadings once the judge makes the determination that the will is valid once the judge makes the determination that the person has died either by death certificates being filed at the court or by certain affidavits of people who knew the decedent being filed at the courthouse then the judge will sign the court order as we call it confirming the executor a judge is signing an order and saying you know the will is valid all the paperwork is right the executor has signed their oath that they'll faithfully perform their duties and so now the judge will sign the order confirming that the named executor is the actual executor and then at that point that court paperwork makes its way from the judge's office down to the clerk of court and then the clerk of court you know verifies that all that all was done appropriately and then the clerk of court will issue several certified copies with the raised seal typically the court clerk of court will issue certified copies of these letters and if there was a will those letters are going to be called either letters testamentary letters of executorship letters of independent executorship letters of co-executorship if there's more than one executor but they're they're going to have the word letters typically first and then they're also going to have the word testamentary or executorship you know in that title of that of that document that the clerk of court issues then oh by the way if there was no will a little bit different proceeding because there's not going to be an executor if there's no will there's only an executor when someone writes a will and names an executor so when there's no will then typically what will happen particularly if all of the heirs are in agreement and they're not fighting with each other the heirs will get together and they'll select someone perhaps one of the heirs to be what's called the administrator and that's the title when there's no will and then you go through a similar proceeding court paperwork gets prepared all of the heirs sign it agreeing to allow this person to be what's called the we call it the independent administrator here in louisiana that independent administrator signs an oath that they'll faithfully perform their duties the appropriate affidavits of death are are submitted with all of that and then that gets to a judge's office and if all that goes right the judge will then sign an order appointing whoever as the administrator of the estate or as we call it in louisiana the administrator of the succession and then again the that makes its way back to the clerk of court who makes multiple certified copies of what is called these letters of administration letters of independent administration letters of co-administration if it's more than one so now those papers are what i could call magic papers in addition to all of that likely you or the attorney will apply to the irs perhaps online to get a tax id number on behalf of the estate that's you know easy to do and then what will happen is now you go to the bank and you go to the bank with your new tax id number you go to the bank with your letters of independent executorship or letters of administration or letters testamentary or whatever it's called and you go to the bank with the deceased person's death certificate and perhaps you go to the bank with your driver's license and you submit all of that to the bank officer and you know what the bank officer is going to tell you they're going to tell you okay well let me get you all the information that you need on the accounts that your mother had and let me get get you access to all of your mother's funds so you can pay her mortgage and start getting this estate settled and then at that point you're like okay now we're in business so um so you just have to really like anything else in life you have to understand what the rules are as frustrated as you may get when you try to skirt the rules it's not going to do any good it's not going to do any good to raise your voice or yell at the banker or whatever or vet your frustration you just need to be informed and that's what this video does is inform you so that you can have a seamless process without you know all of this frustration that people have to have when they go through a procedure that they've never been through before now what that executor will do is they will establish an estate account at the bank of their choosing and with these letters they can go to all of mama's banks if she went you know maybe she banked with multiple people and all those banks they'll close mama's account they'll make a certified check payable to estate of mama and then you will or the executor will deposit all of those funds into the estate account now that executor you know has the has has access to funds to start you know doing things um and following the rules that an executor is supposed to follow because an executor can't just do whatever they want to with the estate funds nor can an administrator when there's no will there are you know from from here moving forward once they get access to funds there's particular rules in every state on how the executor must do their job to make sure that everything's handled appropriately remember they sign an oath that they'll faithfully perform their duties so this is just the piece to get access to a deceased's frozen accounts so things can start getting done so be aware of this letters concept this should lay it out for you pretty good what also can help you understand things better is if you really smash that like button and that tells youtube to show my videos to more people then double make sure that you if you haven't already you know subscribe by hitting the subscribe button and the notification bell that way you won't miss any of any of my other important videos hope that helps i'm paul rambley y'all have a great day