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Wills and estate

A will does not avoid probate. It is what probate reads.

The four ways property leaves an estate and which of them a will controls, the two Supreme Court rulings that let an outdated beneficiary form beat a divorce decree, what probate costs in a state that publishes its fee schedule, and the simplified transfers most estates qualify for.

38 min read, updated September 2026

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Wills and estate

You already have a will. The state wrote it.

Why intestate succession is a will in every practical sense, how three states answer the same simple question three different ways, why a surviving spouse frequently does not inherit everything, the unmarried partner and the unadopted stepchild who inherit nothing at all, the larger pile of property the statute never touches because a beneficiary form governs it, the executor, bond and guardian a court fills in when nobody was named, and how far the search for relatives runs before anything escheats.

29 min read, updated September 2026

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Wills and estate

Medicare will not pay for it. Medicaid will, once there is nothing left.

What Medicaid asks before it pays and what spending down actually means, why the five year look-back runs backwards from the day care is needed rather than forwards from a gift, how a penalty period is calculated and why it does not begin until someone is already broke and in a facility, the specific transfers federal law does not penalize including the caretaker child exception, the two protections for a spouse still at home and the income-first rule that orders them, the home equity ceiling, and the estate recovery that federal law requires rather than permits.

29 min read, updated September 2026

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