Melia Advisory Group, a Tulsa-based financial advisory firm, is putting renewed emphasis on probate avoidance within its estate planning practice, centered on three areas that determine whether an estate reaches court at all: revocable living trusts, beneficiary designation reviews, and how assets are titled. This change comes following a report that found that total wealth lost to the probate system recently crossed the $2 billion threshold nationwide.
On a macro level, the $2 billion wealth drain caused by probate is divided into two core components, suggests Modern Law: attorney fees and the more direct costs associated with the process itself. While attorney fees vary widely by state, overall they are estimated to make up around half of that $2 billion figure.
The financial costs are typically only the beginning. Probate is triggered when assets are titled solely in the decedent's name without a valid beneficiary or transfer-on-death designation, and the process unfolds under court supervision — in some states taking families more than a year to complete. During that period, heirs may face restricted access to assets, disagreements over distribution, and a prolonged administrative burden that arrives at an already difficult time.
With this in mind, the case for avoiding the process where possible becomes clear. The American Bar Association confirms that revocable living trusts do help avoid probate, though it cautions that a trust rarely avoids the process entirely — a pour-over will is typically executed alongside it to capture any assets never transferred into the trust — and that the decision should follow a review of individual circumstances.
"The costs people focus on are the filing fees and the attorney's bill, but the real damage is the delay," said Greg Melia, President of Melia Advisory Group. "A family that's grieving shouldn't be waiting a year or more for access to assets that were meant for them. Our role is to make sure the accounts we manage are titled and designated the way the client actually intended, and to catch the mismatches before they become someone else's problem."
In 2026, a LegalZoom report demonstrated that probate costs are virtually guaranteed to continue to rise, particularly as the US prepares to undergo one of the largest transfers of generational wealth in history. As such, the vital necessity of planning, preparing, and maintaining documentation has also never been greater.
To read more, visit https://www.meliagroup.com/estate-planning