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Planning ahead

Passing things on without probate

When someone dies, what they owned in their own name alone usually goes through probate, a court process that can take months, cost money and make the details public. With some planning, most of what you own can pass straight to the people you choose instead.

This is general information, not legal advice. Laws differ from state to state and country to country. Please have a licensed estate-planning lawyer where you live set it up.

The main ways

Revocable living trustYou put your property into a trust and stay in charge as trustee: you can sell it, refinance it, change who gets it or cancel the trust. When you die, the successor trustee you named hands it out as you wrote, without probate. A trust can also give children their share in stages.
Lady Bird deed (Michigan homes and land)Also called an enhanced life estate deed. You keep full control of the property while you live and can still sell it; at your death it passes to the people named in the deed without probate.
Payable-on-death (POD) and transfer-on-death (TOD)Bank accounts (POD) and investment accounts (TOD) can name beneficiaries. The money stays yours while you live; afterwards they claim it directly from the bank or brokerage.
Named beneficiariesLife insurance, IRAs and 401(k)s pass to the beneficiaries on file — whatever your will says. Check them after every marriage, divorce or birth.
Joint ownership with right of survivorshipThe surviving owner takes it automatically. It also gives the other owner rights now, so think it through.
A will — the backupA will says who gets what, but what passes by will usually still goes through probate. With a trust, a short “pour-over” will catches anything left outside it.

The key word is “funded”

Signing a trust is not enough. Each house needs a new deed recorded with the county, and each account must be retitled to the trust or given a beneficiary. A trust that owns nothing still leaves your family in probate.

In Michigan

  • Michigan has no transfer-on-death deed for real estate (as of 2026). Don't use another state's TOD deed form; ask a lawyer about a Lady Bird deed or a trust.
  • Cars: the Secretary of State can transfer a deceased owner's vehicles to the heirs without probate when their total value is $60,000 or less.
  • Small estates: when there's no real estate and the estate is small, heirs can collect it by affidavit after 28 days — the limit is set each year (about $53,000 for deaths in 2026).
  • A trust in Michigan needs a person with capacity who clearly means to create it, a definite beneficiary and a trustee with real duties; banks and title companies expect it signed before a notary.

Sources: MCL 700.7402 · Michigan Secretary of State — vehicles of a deceased owner · Michigan Legal Help — small estates

Outside Michigan: many states allow a transfer-on-death deed for homes, and small-estate limits differ. Ask a lawyer in your state.

Keeping to the Islamic shares

A trust or beneficiary form that divides your estate at death works much like a will. In Ayatollah Sistani's rulings, a will is binding for up to one-third of the estate; beyond that it needs the heirs' consent. So before you leave one heir more, or someone else a share, check your plan with your marjaʿ's office — and ask your lawyer to write the Islamic shares into the trust or beneficiary forms where that's what you want.

Sistani, Islamic Laws — Will, ruling 2738

A simple order to do it in

  1. List everything you own and who you want it to go to.
  2. Check the plan against the Islamic shares with your marjaʿ's office.
  3. See an estate-planning lawyer: trust, pour-over will, deeds.
  4. Fund it: record the deeds, retitle accounts, add POD/TOD beneficiaries.
  5. Tell your successor trustee and executor where the papers are.

For members: your estate map

Members preparing their own page can keep an encrypted estate map in Manage — each home, account, car or business, how it passes, who receives it, how far the paperwork has got and where the papers are. Your successors can read it after your page is handed over.

Open my estate mapPrepare your own page

Islamic Souls is not a law firm and doesn't prepare trusts, deeds or other legal documents. Also see: Good deeds for the deceased · FAQ