What is the difference between probate and trust administration?

What is the difference between probate and trust administration?

Attorney Gadi Zohar explains:

The biggest difference between probate and trust administration is the court system. Trust administration in most cases, is done completely outside of the court system. It’s a private transaction where the trustee is administering the trust according to whatever the directions were in the trust. A probate, on the other hand, is a court supervised process.

Everything has to go through the court system. There are particular requirements. There are requirements that can be waived and there are requirements that cannot be waived. It’s much less flexible than the trust administration process. Oftentimes, a trust administration process can be done quite quickly, whereas a probate process generally takes roughly about a year if it’s smooth.