What Is An Estate?

For Estate Planning and Probate purposes, an ESTATE is the property that a person leaves after they die. The value of the ESTATE is the total of the assets and the debts of the person who died.

Ownership of the property in the ESTATE passes immediately on the death of a person to another person or organization. A court case is usually required to decide which persons or organizations own each piece of property and transfer title to their property.

Until all the property and title to the property has been transferred to the new owners, a legal entity also called an ESTATE is created to manage and take care of the property.