Estates over $208,850 may be subject to Probate. Your house is surely worth more than that. Probate is a Court case filed in the Probate Court designed to protect your heirs and beneficiaries, and also your creditors, and to provide an orderly structure for settlement of your affairs. So far, so good, except a Probate can take 8 months to a year, or longer, to close. And it is expensive. The way fees are calculated, fees and costs can easily exceed $20,000 and are typically much more.

Assets held in a revocable trust do not have to go through Probate. Your Trust will act similar to a Will. The Trust will designate the people or charities you want to receive your house when you die. With a Trust, settling your affairs may take as little as five or six months, with far less expense to your beneficiaries.

A few more things to know about leaving your house when you die: First, the bad news: The property taxes for your house will be reassessed as of the date of your death. Having a Trust will not avoid reassessment, nor will it help to delay distribution.

The good news is your house will get a new “stepped-up” tax basis when you die. The new basis will be the value of the house at the date of your death. If your beneficiaries sell your house soon after you die, they will not have to pay any capital gains tax. Note: The stepped-up basis happens with or without a Will or Trust.

And a final piece of good news is there won’t be any estate or inheritance tax owed by your beneficiaries. All the uncertainty about estate tax was settled by the recent Tax Act that permanently set the estate tax exemption at $15,000,000 per person, starting January 1, 2026, with annual adjustments for inflation.