Many Missouri families assume a will keeps their estate out of court. It doesn’t. A will only tells the probate court what to do with your assets. Whether an asset goes through probate at all depends on how it is titled and whether it has a named beneficiary. Two people with identical wills can leave behind very different probate cases.
5 Assets That May Bypass Probate
1. Life insurance and annuities. If you name a living beneficiary, the insurer pays that person directly. The court never touches the money, and your will has no say over it.
2. Retirement accounts. IRAs, 401(k)s, and similar plans pass by beneficiary designation as well. That only works if the form is current. A form naming a deceased parent or an ex-spouse can produce a result you never intended.
3. Payable-on-death and transfer-on-death accounts. Missouri’s Nonprobate Transfers Law lets you add a POD or TOD beneficiary to bank accounts, brokerage accounts, and vehicle titles. At your death, the beneficiary claims the asset with a death certificate and identification.
4. Real estate with a beneficiary deed or survivorship title. A Missouri beneficiary deed transfers your home at death without probate, as long as it was signed and recorded before death. Property held in joint tenancy with right of survivorship, or by married couples as tenants by the entirety, also passes automatically to the surviving owner.
5. Assets held in a funded revocable trust. Property titled in the name of your living trust is managed and distributed by your successor trustee. No court involvement is required. The word “funded” matters here: a trust document with no assets transferred into it avoids nothing.
5 Assets That Usually Go Through Probate
1. Real estate in your name alone. A house, rental property, or farmland titled only to you, with no beneficiary deed, will almost always need probate before it can be sold or retitled.
2. Individual accounts with no beneficiary. A checking account, savings account, or CD in your name alone, with no POD designation, becomes part of your probate estate. Even a forgotten account can push the total over Missouri’s $40,000 small estate limit.
3. Vehicles and personal property. Cars without a TOD designation, jewelry, firearms, collections, and household furnishings generally pass through the estate. These items are also some of the most common sources of family disputes.
4. Your share of tenancy-in-common property. If you own real estate with someone as tenants in common, your share does not pass to the co-owner. It goes through probate to your heirs, which can leave a sibling co-owning property with your children.
5. Assets whose beneficiary died first, or that name “my estate.” If the only named beneficiary predeceased you and there is no backup, or if the form names your estate, the asset falls back into probate. The beneficiary designation that was supposed to avoid court ends up sending the asset there.
Avoiding Probate Doesn’t Mean Avoiding Every Problem
Nonprobate transfers are powerful, but they have limits. Missouri law can require nonprobate assets to help pay the deceased’s debts if the probate estate isn’t large enough. Beneficiary designations also override your will. If your will leaves everything equally to three children but one child is named on the largest account, that child receives the account, and the will can’t fix it.
Assets that do go through probate are distributed under your will. Without a will, they pass under Missouri’s statutory order, which we explain in our article on who inherits when there is no will.
Make Sure Your Titles Match Your Plan
The most effective step most families can take is simple. List every significant asset, note how it is titled and who is named as beneficiary, and confirm it matches what you want. That review often reveals gaps that would have cost your family months in court.
Mark Harford Law helps Missouri families coordinate wills, trusts, deeds, and beneficiary designations through our estates practice. We also guide heirs through probate in Chesterfield and surrounding counties when assets haven’t been coordinated. Contact us today to schedule a consultation.