Sit down with the mail, the last twelve months of statements, the deed to the house, and whatever the deceased kept in the file drawer marked important. What you are doing in that first afternoon is not administration, it is triage, and it decides how much of the next year you spend inside a courthouse. Some assets move to the people named on them almost automatically, with a death certificate and a form. Others sit frozen until a judge appoints somebody with authority to sign. Sorting which is which, before you pay anyone an hourly rate to do it for you, is the single most useful unpaid hour available to you.
The two columns, and what belongs in each
Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle. On the left goes everything that already has a living human being attached to it by operation of law or by contract: a checking account held jointly with right of survivorship, a life insurance policy with a named beneficiary, an IRA or a 401(k) with a designation form on file, a house held as joint tenants or as community property with right of survivorship, anything titled in the name of a revocable living trust, and in most states a vehicle, which the motor vehicle department will retitle on a small affidavit. On the right goes everything else. The right column is the estate the court will see.
The distinction is not about value and it is not about fairness. A million dollar retirement account with a beneficiary named in 1998 passes outside probate; a checking account with four thousand dollars in it and no payable-on-death instruction does not. People find this backward, and it is worth sitting with the logic for a moment, because it explains almost everything about what comes next. Probate exists to supply a signature that nobody else can supply. Where a contract or a deed already answers the question of who takes the asset, the court has nothing to add and stays out of it.
What reliably lands in front of a judge
Solely owned real property is the anchor of the right-hand column, and it is the reason most estates go through probate at all. A deed in one name, with no transfer-on-death designation recorded and no trust holding title, cannot be sold or refinanced or insured against a buyer's title objection until somebody holds letters from the court. Alongside it you will usually find a bank account or two that nobody ever added a beneficiary to, a brokerage account opened before anyone thought about designations, a final paycheck, a tax refund, a stake in a small business, and personal property of real value such as equipment, firearms, or a coin collection. Anything owned as tenants in common belongs there too.
Watch for the designations that failed quietly. A beneficiary who predeceased the account holder, a form naming an ex-spouse that was never updated, a trust that was signed but never funded because the deed was never re-recorded. Each of those moves an asset from the left column to the right, and each is common enough that you should verify rather than assume. Call the institution, ask what beneficiary they have on file, and write down the answer with the date and the name of the person who told you.
Why the right-hand column prices the job
Once the sorting is done, the cost of the whole enterprise comes into focus, because the right-hand column determines which of several very different procedures applies. Many states offer a small estate affidavit for personal property under a statutory ceiling, which is a form and a notary and costs almost nothing. Above that ceiling, or where real property is involved, you are into a formal appointment with filing fees, published notice, an inventory, a creditor claim period, and a final accounting. Fee structures vary by state and by firm, and are worth asking about directly, since some jurisdictions set fees as a percentage of the estate while others bill hourly or by a flat quote for a defined scope.
This is the point at which the sorted lists earn their keep. Walking into a consultation with a written inventory, the deed, the account numbers, and a note on each asset saying beneficiary or none turns a discovery meeting into a scoping meeting, and scoping is what a Probate Lawyer needs in order to quote you a real number rather than a range. If the right column holds a single unbeneficiaried bank account, you may need an hour of advice and nothing more. If it holds a house, a rental property, and a business interest, you are buying a year of managed process, and you want that priced up front.
The obligations that survive the sorting
Two things do not respect the line you drew. Creditors have claims against the estate regardless of how assets happen to be titled, and the Internal Revenue Service, which is responsible for federal income and estate tax administration, expects a final individual return and, where the estate earns income during administration, a return for the estate itself. Assets that passed outside probate can still be reachable in some situations, and income earned by a retirement account after the date of death still gets reported by whoever received it. Keep a third short note of debts, open credit lines, and the last tax year filed.
The lists take an afternoon and they cost nothing. What they buy you is the ability to walk into any conversation about this estate knowing roughly which procedure applies, roughly what it should cost, and exactly which questions still need an answer.