The first question after a death is usually whether a probate case has to be opened, and the honest answer is that nobody knows until someone builds an inventory organized by how each asset is titled. Not by value, not by sentiment, by title. A house held in joint tenancy with right of survivorship and a house held in the decedent's name alone look identical from the driveway and behave in completely different ways at the courthouse. The work is clerical rather than legal, and a careful person with a folder of statements can usually finish it in a few evenings.
Build the list from documents, not from memory
Start with the paper: recent bank and brokerage statements, the deed to any real property, vehicle titles, life insurance policies, retirement plan statements, and the last two years of tax returns, which tend to surface accounts nobody remembered. For each item, write down the exact name on the account and whether a second name appears, and if so in what capacity. Joint owner, payable on death beneficiary, custodian, trustee. Those words carry the whole outcome. Family recollection is unreliable here, because people describe accounts as shared when the title says nothing of the kind, and the institution will go by its own records.
Sort each asset into the column it belongs in
Several ownership forms move property without a court order. Joint tenancy with right of survivorship, and tenancy by the entirety between spouses, pass to the survivor by operation of law once a certified death certificate is recorded or filed. Payable on death and transfer on death registrations do the same for bank and brokerage accounts. Retirement accounts and life insurance pay whoever the beneficiary designation names, regardless of what the will says. A transfer on death deed, available in a majority of states though not all, carries real property directly to the named grantee. Assets titled in the name of a living trust are governed by the trust, and the successor trustee acts without an appointment.
What remains after that sorting is the probate estate: property the decedent owned alone, with no surviving co-owner and no beneficiary named. That is often a checking account, a car, a modest brokerage account, and household goods. It is sometimes nothing at all.
Check the assumptions that quietly fail
A careful reader treats every non-probate label as a claim to be verified rather than a conclusion. Beneficiary designations lapse when the named person predeceases and no contingent beneficiary was added, which pushes the proceeds back into the estate. Living trusts are frequently underfunded, meaning the document exists but the deed was never re-recorded into the trust or a later brokerage account was opened in the individual name. Deeds sometimes say tenants in common where the family assumed survivorship. Confirm the deed language at the county recorder's office, confirm designations in writing with each institution, and compare the trust's schedule of assets against what the statements actually show.
See whether a small estate procedure covers what is left
Most states offer a simplified route when the sole-name property falls under a statutory ceiling, typically through an affidavit signed under oath after a short waiting period, often thirty to forty-five days from the date of death. The ceiling varies widely by state, and the statute usually specifies which assets count toward it, commonly excluding real property, vehicles, and anything already passing to a survivor. Some states offer a summary administration for slightly larger estates that still avoids full supervision. Read the statute rather than a summary of it, because the counting rules, not the headline number, decide eligibility.
Know when opening a case is still the better move
Formal probate earns its cost when the estate needs powers an affidavit cannot supply: authority to sell real property with clear title, a mechanism to cut off creditor claims after a published notice period, or a neutral forum when beneficiaries disagree. It also helps when the estate must file returns and deal with the Internal Revenue Service, which oversees federal income tax filings for estates and trusts, since a court-appointed representative has documented standing to sign. Deciding this after the inventory is done, rather than before, is what keeps the choice grounded.
The inventory is the deliverable. Once each asset sits in a column with the title language written next to it, the question of whether to file answers itself, and the conversation with an attorney, if there is one, starts from facts rather than guesses.