Probate is the procedure of asking the court to give someone authority to administer the assets and affairs of someone who has passed away. The court will appoint someone as the executor or personal representative of the estate. The personal representative then gathers assets and determines what creditors need to be paid. When those issues are resolved, the personal representative arranges for distributions to heirs.
Nonprobate assets pass outside of probate. Probate is only necessary if the decedent had probate assets.
Examples of Nonprobate Assets: Real property that is subject to a community property agreement, a transfer on death deed, or a joint tenancy with rights of survivorship; IRAs or Investment accounts, bank accounts, stocks, bonds, life insurance proceeds, or annuities that have a named beneficiary.
Examples of Probate Assets: Real and personal property and accounts not subject to any of the above, including but not limited to household goods, vehicles, boats and motorhomes, mobile homes not tied to real property, jewelry and other personal effects and memorabilia, guns, coins, art, and all other items of value owned by the Decedent on the date of death.
Real property refers to land and the things permanently attached to the land (like a house). Personal property is everything else (cash, cars, furniture, etc).
A bequest is gift of personal property (usually not money) given under a Will. A legacy is also a gift of personal property, but this word generally signifies a gift of money. A devise is a gift of real property under a Will. All of these terms are somewhat old-fashioned. Modern usage in the US trends toward any gift being described as a devise.
An heir is someone who would inherit under the laws of intestacy. A beneficiary is someone who inherits because they are named in the will. The named recipient of a life insurance policy or other financial account is also called a beneficiary.
A way of measuring how closely two people are related. It is computed by counting upward from the decedent to the nearest common ancestor and then downward to the relative, the degree of kinship being the sum of these two counts.
The lineal descendants of an individual (children, grandchildren, etc). An adopted individual is a lineal descendant of each of his or her adoptive parents and of all individuals with regard to which each adoptive parent is a lineal descendant. A child conceived prior to the death of a parent but born after the death of the deceased parent is considered to be the surviving issue of the deceased parent for purposes of this title
A method of determining distribution in which the takers are in unequal degrees of kinship with respect to a decedent, and is accomplished as follows: After first determining who, of those entitled to share in the estate, are in the nearest degree of kinship, the estate is divided into equal shares, the number of shares being the sum of the number of persons who survive the decedent who are in the nearest degree of kinship and the number of persons in the same degree of kinship who died before the decedent but who left issue surviving the decedent; each share of a deceased person in the nearest degree must be divided among those of the deceased person’s issue who survive the decedent and have no ancestor then living who is in the line of relationship between them and the decedent, those more remote in degree taking together the share which their ancestor would have taken had he or she survived the decedent.