Vampire-Proof Your Estate

What if the scariest part of probate isn’t the paperwork—but the creditors waiting to drain an estate dry? We pull back the curtain on practical, legal tools that keep wealth intact, from the first filing to the final distribution. Jane and Haley explain how to start the clock with a proper notice to creditors, why a thorough inventory creates leverage and clarity, and how a clean estate bank account shields you from commingling risks and messy accounting. If you’ve ever wondered how claims actually get processed—or challenged—this conversation gives you the step-by-step playbook.

We dive into the fine print of creditor strategy: spotting invalid or mistaken claims, using North Carolina procedures to object, and negotiating unsecured debts for less when quick payment makes sense. You’ll hear where the line gets drawn with secured debts like mortgages and car loans, and why keeping those payments current is non-negotiable if you want to avoid foreclosure or repossession during estate administration. We also share how non-estate funds, including life insurance proceeds, can preserve key assets so you don’t lose the family home or a vital vehicle while claims are pending.

Finally, we talk prevention: the smartest way to avoid creditor chaos is to limit what goes through probate in the first place. With the right mix of trusts, beneficiary designations, and lady bird deeds, many assets can pass outside probate and stay beyond most creditors’ reach. Whether you’re serving as a personal representative or planning ahead for your family, you’ll come away with clear, actionable steps to protect assets, reduce stress, and finish administration with fewer surprises. If you found this helpful, follow the show, share it with someone who’s facing probate, and leave a review to help others find these tools.

Episode Transcript

Jane Dearwester (00:02):
Hi, I'm Jane Dear wester with McIntyre
Elder Law here today with mycolleague Haley Matson.
Hi, how are you?
I'm good.
Yeah, hey, we are here to talkabout some spooky things here.
We're entering spooky seasonand we're talking about the way
that your estate or any estatecould be drained, or we kind of

(00:27):
have this vampire theme thatthere could be vampires looking
out or trying to hone in and getall the assets out of your
estate to bleed out your estate.
So we're going to talk todayabout ways to avoid that, to
preserve estate assets and avoidall the spooky things that can
happen as you're working throughan estate administration

(00:49):
process.
So we're just kind of going togo back and forth.
I'm going to start by talkingabout at the beginning of
probate or estateadministration, what's really
important is to publish what'scalled a notice to creditors.
So this is something we want toget filed in the probate estate
as soon as possible because itstarts the clock ticking.

(01:10):
It's a public notice that's runin a local newspaper that says,
hey, anybody who has a claimagainst this person who's
deceased, now's your time tobring it.
And here's your deadline tobring it.
So we want to get that clockticking as soon as possible so
that we can move forward withthe estate administration and

(01:31):
again uh limit the amount ofcreditors that can come in and
make claims against the estate.
And I will flip over to Haleyfor the next one on our list.

Haley Matson (01:40):
Yeah.
The creditors are trueblood-sucking vampires.
They really are.
But another way that you cankind of avoid that or at least
kind of plan ahead is doing yourinventory.
So when you open probate,you're required to do an
inventory anyway.
But even before that, oncesomeone passes, if you can just

(02:01):
do a quick pass-through of theirhouse, figure out their assets,
their personal property, maybefind some stuff that nobody in
the family wants.
All of that could be sold tohelp stave off these creditors.
So that could always besomething that you do.
But either way, you just want areally good idea of kind of
what's going through the probateestate and what creditors may

(02:22):
be able to take from you.
Um, it's also really importantfor you to go ahead and open an
estate bank account.
That's gonna make sure thatestate funds are not commingled
with like your own funds.
That's gonna keep themseparated and protect yourself
from any of these bloodsuckingcreditors that are gonna come
through.
Absolutely.

Jane Dearwester (02:43):
Uh another way, again, to protect the probate
estate and the decedent's assetsis you have the capacity, if
you're the personalrepresentative or executor of an
estate, to object to claimsthat are invalid.
So we see this, I don't knowwhat the percentage of time is,
but we do see it often wherethere are claims filed.

(03:05):
Maybe the decedent's name isJohn Smith, and guess what?
There's more than one JohnSmith in the world.
So we could get claims againstJohn Smith, but it wasn't our
John Smith.
So there is a procedure toprocess statutes, laws in place
in North Carolina that give us aplatform to object or to
challenge invalid claims.

(03:27):
Either the whole claim itselfis invalid or the amount alleged
in the claim is invalid.
So again, look at thosecarefully.
Don't just receive those claimsand assume you've got to pay
them.
You can question those and evenchallenge those and have them
set aside.

Haley Matson (03:45):
Yeah, something else that I just thought of is
that there's a lot of timeswhere if you offer to pay one of
those creditors like 500 bucksin cash on a $5,000 outstanding
bill, sometimes they'll take it.
You can always offer cash upfront or try to negotiate with
them as well.
I mean, I can't guarantee it'llbe successful, but I mean, I

(04:05):
just saw that in the case that Ihad not that long ago that they
look way cheaper.

Jane Dearwester (04:10):
Yeah, that's negotiating the claims.
That's a very good, very goodpoint.
Negotiating the claims down.
Hey, anything's negotiable.
All they can say is no.
And if you don't ask, they'redefinitely not going to offer to
let you pay less.
True, true.

Haley Matson (04:26):
But one thing that I don't think really counts for
that is secured debts,mortgages, car payments,
anything with collateral and atitle, any money you owe to
those folks, they usually won'ttake less than what the decedent
has already been paying.
But you, as executor oradministrator, you want to make

(04:48):
sure that those are kept up todate and continually paid.
Because if they're not paid,that's when foreclosures and
repossessions can happen.
Creditors are not afraid offoreclosing on a house in the
middle of a probate estate.
Likewise, they're not afraid ofrepossessing a car that hasn't
been paid on just becauseprobate is open.
So you want to really make surethat those are paid up and that

(05:11):
you know who you're paying andthat you have all of that under
control as well.

Jane Dearwester (05:16):
That's right.
Uh, another one that we have onour list here is as the
personal representative orexecutor, if you want to
preserve assets like the home,vehicles, or kind of any other
assets that you can usenon-estate funds or even like
life insurance proceeds to makepayments to preserve those

(05:40):
assets so that they can't bedrawn in to probate.
North Carolina is a uh limitedrecourse state.
So creditors can only challengeand attach claims to the
probate estate.
But if the probate estate isinsufficient to satisfy the
claims, the law allows you topull in non-estate assets or

(06:04):
jointly held property to satisfycreditors.
So if you don't want creditors,again, the blood-sucking
creditors to come in, you've gotto make a plan to protect those
assets with other funds thatmaybe pass outside of probate
and aren't part of probateestate, maybe there are use and

(06:24):
maybe available to the executor,PR, family members to preserve
those estate assets.

Haley Matson (06:31):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think one of the finalthings that you know we want to
say is that a way to avoidcreditors in a probate estate is
to first of all avoid going toprobate.
You can do that through hiringan estate planning attorney and
getting that done sooner ratherthan later.
An estate planning attorneywill help you structure your

(06:53):
assets, plan your estate, figureout which vehicles to open,
maybe a trust, maybe a ladybirddeed, to keep everything that's
important to you outside ofprobate.
Anything that passes outside ofprobate typically is not going
to be subject to most creditorclaims.
Like Jane said, there are somethings that they might try to

(07:14):
reach, but they may not besuccessful.
And for the most part, they'reprotected.
So come see an estate planningattorney like Jane and I at
McIntyre Elder Law, and we canlook through your estate and
your assets, and we can create aplan together to keep those
assets out of probate and out ofthe vampire creditors.

Jane Dearwester (07:34):
That's all right.
Thank you so much for joiningme today, Haley.
We look forward to hearing fromyou all soon if you need help
with probate or avoidingprobate.

Haley Matson (07:43):
Yes.

Jane Dearwester (07:43):
Sounds good.