You can avoid probate by titling bank accounts, brokerage account as joint tenants.

It's true that there's no probate if ONE of the two joint tenants dies; in that case, the survivor simply assumes full ownership. But the original post referred to the death of both husband and wife. That's when you need the house (or other asset) held in trust. Otherwise, it's probate time.

And it's true that the unifed credit has gone up, and will be going up quite a bit more in the next 8-9 years. That eases the estate tax hit, but doesn't help if you're trying to avoid probate. (And all that tax stuff reverts to the old way in 2010 anyway - last year's tax law has a sunset clause. But I think it's likely that congress will fix that between now and then...)

Lorenzo, I hope you land somewhere, for free, that you feel at home. If not, come on back to TMF. It is such a great caring family of people who warn you and give you information. To me it is well worth the $30 a year; what is that, one dinner out minus the wine?

It's not about $30 a year. I've just recently become Foolish enough to switch from my mid-priced broker to a deep discount broker, and expect to pay roughly $1000 less in commissions this year than I did last year. So I can well afford $30. It's more a question of what these boards will look like after the Ides of February. A great many talented and prolific posters are staying, gratis. Good for them. But whose questions are they going to answer? I expect that most of people who pose questions will be reluctant, or unable, to pay the Brothers' fee. Re this tax board, at least, as one other poster said in another string - "heck, I'll just take my $30 and go to H&R Block" - or buy TurboTax, or something else.

I also see the new fee policy as a bit of a broken promise. Early on, the Motley Fool was about taking charge of your finances and your life. Don't pay for advice, you can do it on your own - there's this great community of independent souls out there who want to help! Well, in the last six months, the Motley Fool has changed course. First they offered a fee-based investment advisory service. Now fee-based bulletin boards. What's next, a fee for stock quotes, or for using the My Fool feature? Enough is enough. The internet's a pretty big place, and the public library is just down the street.