Four drafting shortcuts we see again and again in probate court, and what each one costs the family that inherits them.
The unfunded trust is first: a beautifully drafted document that no asset was ever transferred into, which sends the whole estate through probate anyway. Second is the stale beneficiary designation on a retirement account, which overrides the will entirely. Third is the amendment signed without a witness anyone can later locate. Fourth is the family home left to four children in equal shares with no mechanism for one of them to buy the others out.
Each of these is cheap to prevent and expensive to litigate — usually somewhere between eighteen months and a third of the estate.