What probate is, what a public probate filing contains, and how RIAs and wealth advisors use filings to reach personal representatives. Includes $124 trillion wealth-transfer data, a mail-first timeline, a sample letter, and FAQ
Jonathan Khorsandi on Sep 29, 2026
This guide is educational orientation only and is not legal, tax, or compliance advice. Confirm outreach practices with your chief compliance officer and counsel.
Probate filings are public court records. When an estate opens, the filing usually names the personal representative (PR), the person the court authorizes to settle the estate. Advisors use that record as a timing signal. They identify the PR, wait until a respectful window after filing, and send an educational letter about settlement decisions. Filings work alongside referrals from estate attorneys and CPAs. They cover the weeks before those introductions arrive.
Cerulli Associates projects $124 trillion will transfer through 2048 in the U.S., with about $105 trillion going to heirs. Gen X and Millennials together stand to receive roughly $85 trillion of it. Much of that wealth changes hands through estates, and a meaningful share of estates still need a court-appointed fiduciary to settle them.
The advisory side of that transfer is less settled. Natixis and Rethinking65 (2026) reported that advisors keep about 72% of assets when a spouse inherits, while about 50% of Millennial and Gen X inheritors leave the benefactor's advisor. Protective Life and PLANADVISER (2026) found that among future inheritors expecting $500,000 or more, 77% already work with a financial professional and only 6% plan to use the bequestor's advisor.
The practical reading: retention work with your own clients' families matters, but most inheritors will choose an advisor on their own. The advisors they choose tend to be the ones who show up with useful help when decisions arrive.
Probate is the court-supervised process that settles a deceased person's estate. The court validates a will (or applies state intestacy rules when there is none), appoints someone with authority to act, identifies and values estate assets, pays valid debts, expenses and taxes, and distributes what remains.
When the process starts, the petition and related documents become a public filing. That filing is the signal this guide is about.
Bypass tools work, but they rarely cover everything. Caring.com's 2025 Wills and Estate Planning Study found that only 24% of U.S. adults report having a will. Even households with a will, TOD accounts and a trust often leave gaps: a house titled only in the decedent's name, a bank account with no POD beneficiary, or a trust that was never fully funded.
| Often still needs probate | Often bypasses probate |
|---|---|
| Assets titled only in the decedent's name | Joint tenancy with survivorship |
| Tenants-in-common interests | Payable-on-death (POD) bank accounts |
| Personal property and untitled leftovers | Transfer-on-death (TOD) brokerage accounts |
| Business interests without a transfer plan | Retirement accounts and life insurance with living beneficiaries |
| Anything a will says must go through the estate | Assets in a funded revocable living trust |
| Estates above a state's small-estate threshold | Estates under a state's small-estate threshold |
Thresholds and procedures vary by state, so matter-specific questions belong with local counsel.
The personal representative is the person or institution the court authorizes to administer the estate. Depending on the state, the role is called an executor (named in a will) or an administrator (appointed by the court).
For outreach purposes the PR is the natural first contact. The PR is named in a public record, holds the authority to act, and is usually an adult child working through paperwork, idle cash and family questions at the same time. Heirs matter, and the PR is how you reach them.
Filings vary by county and by case. A typical filing includes the case number, county, filing date, the decedent's name, the petitioner or PR, estate counsel, and sometimes named heirs or interested parties.
Filings do not include asset values, account holdings, or how the family plans to settle the estate. A mailing address, phone number or email for the PR has to be found separately, which is what skip tracing does. A filing tells you an estate has opened and who is authorized to act. It does not tell you whether the family needs an advisor or whether the estate fits your minimums.
This is an illustrative sequence, not a legal schedule. Actual timing varies by state and county.
| Stage | What happens | What it means for outreach |
|---|---|---|
| Death | Family handles funeral and immediate logistics | No outreach |
| Petition filed | A petition opens the estate and asks the court to appoint a PR | Filing becomes public |
| PR appointed | The court authorizes the PR to act | Start your clock here |
| 30 to 60 days after filing | The PR begins gathering assets, notifying creditors and making decisions | A common window for a first letter |
| 60 to 90 days after filing | Cash decisions, beneficiary accounts and property questions come up | A useful follow-up window |
The rule of thumb is to start from filing and appointment, never from the obituary. Set the exact window with your firm's policy and counsel.
The PR, by mail. Contact heirs only when the PR is an institution or unresponsive, or when your niche is specifically heir-side sudden wealth. Estate attorneys and CPAs are relationship partners, not cold-contact targets.
Four touches over about 60 to 90 days:
This is a sample to adapt with your compliance team. Nothing here is approved copy.
Dear [Name],
I was sorry to see that your [relationship] passed away. I am writing because I noticed that you were named as personal representative for the estate in [County].
I am a [credential] at [Firm], and I help families with the financial decisions that follow a death, such as what to do with cash in the estate, how beneficiary accounts work, and how to coordinate with the estate's attorney and CPA. I have enclosed a one-page checklist of decisions personal representatives commonly face in the first 90 days.
You do not need to respond. If a conversation would be useful, my direct line is [number]. If you would prefer not to hear from me again, reply to this letter or call and I will remove your name.
Sincerely, [Name]
Every touch should identify who you are, avoid any suggestion that you represent the estate or practice law, and make declining easy.
Do not call when the family has asked you to stop, when the number is on a DNC list, when the estate looks contested, when it is funeral week with no PR appointed, or when your CCO has not approved the channel and script. Do not use autodialers, SMS blasts or AI voice without proper consent. Mail can still be appropriate in cases where phone is not.
| Wait for a COI introduction | Filing-based outreach | |
|---|---|---|
| Timing | Set by someone else's calendar | Set by the public docket and your process |
| First-touch trust | Warm when it works | Cold start, so you have to earn it |
| Volume | Unpredictable | A steadier flow of new filings in covered counties |
| Best use | When counsel or the CPA is ready to introduce you | When the filing is public and no introduction has arrived |
Use both. A referral from an attorney or CPA will outperform any cold letter, and it is worth protecting those relationships first.
These are general patterns. Confirm all of them with your CCO and counsel before you scale.
Advisors generally may contact retail individuals identified from public records, subject to marketing and telemarketing rules. Estate attorneys generally may not solicit the same way, so do not blur your role into practicing law. Communications should follow FINRA and SEC marketing standards and stay supervised and archived. On the phone, your firm owns DNC and TCPA compliance, and manual dialing is the safer pattern. Email follows CAN-SPAM. Direct mail is often the lowest-friction cold channel for public-record contacts, provided the copy is truthful.
Filings are a starting point, and several things can limit their value.
Names alone are not a pipeline. You still need an offer for the first 90 days, approved copy, scrubbing, a CRM that logs every touch and honors every stop request, and a written cadence with a stop rule.
ProbateData has monitored courthouse probate filings since 2009, and delivers named PR and heir contacts with skip-trace enrichment across a large set of U.S. counties. Real estate professionals have used the data for years to help families with inherited property. The same public-record feed can support advisory outreach when it is paired with an advisor-appropriate process and your firm's compliance framework.
We are expanding this work toward wealth advisors, and early users are helping shape filters and onboarding. To ask about coverage in your area, contact the ProbateData team through this site.
Probate is the court-supervised process of settling a deceased person's estate: validating a will (or applying intestacy rules), appointing a personal representative, identifying assets, paying debts and taxes, and distributing what remains. A probate filing is the public record that opens or advances that process. It often names the PR, counsel, and sometimes heirs, which is why advisors use filings as a timing signal.
Cerulli Associates (2024) projects about $124 trillion in U.S. wealth transferring through 2048, including about $105 trillion to heirs. Not every dollar passes through probate, and no reputable public source publishes a probate share of that total, so this guide does not estimate one. What the data supports is that wealth is moving at historic scale and many households still lack complete bypass planning.
Bypass tools only cover the assets they actually reach. Sole-name real estate, tenants-in-common interests, unfunded trusts, and accounts without living beneficiaries often still require probate. Families frequently hold a mix of assets that transfer by contract and assets that need court authority, so a filing can appear even when part of the estate has already moved outside probate.
A personal representative is the person or institution the court appoints to administer a decedent's estate. Depending on the state and whether there is a will, the role may be called executor or administrator. The PR is usually the first person to contact because the PR is named, authorized, and managing early settlement decisions.
Generally, advisors are not subject to the same live-solicitation limits that restrict many estate attorneys. Mail, compliant email, and carefully run phone outreach to individuals identified from public records can be permitted when marketing, telemarketing and books-and-records rules are followed. Your firm and CCO set channel policy, so confirm with counsel before scaling. This is not legal advice.
An obituary marks a death. A PR appointment marks a public decision-maker and the point when families begin facing cash, beneficiary and account decisions. Waiting until a PR is named, usually several weeks after filing, also avoids the appearance of chasing grief.
Start with the PR. Heirs are a secondary contact, most useful when the PR is an institution or unresponsive, or when your practice focuses on heir-side sudden wealth. Avoid messaging that pits family members against each other or implies knowledge beyond the public record.
No. Estate attorneys and CPAs remain high-trust referral partners. Filings cover the gap when a case is already public and no introduction has arrived. Protect your COI relationships and run a filing-based cadence for estates outside those introductions.
Real estate outreach focuses on property: listing, sale or purchase. Advisor outreach focuses on settlement planning, idle cash, beneficiary accounts, rollovers and ongoing advice. The public filing layer is the same. The offer, scripts, compliance stack and success measures are different, and the goal is a fitting conversation, not a listing.
Do not imply that you represent the estate, practice law, or have any court relationship. Do not lead with product performance, guaranteed outcomes or pressure. Do not make contact during funeral week with no PR appointed. Do not ignore stop requests. Identify yourself, offer settlement help, and make declining easy.
No. Names and contact details are the first input. You still need an offer for the first 90 days, approved copy, scrubbing and logging, judgment about which estates fit, and a written stop rule.
Your CCO or equivalent, and usually firm counsel, for scripts, vendors and channel rules. State waiting-period and telemarketing rules vary, so document your process before adding volume.
Sources
This guide is educational orientation only and is not legal, tax, or compliance advice. Confirm outreach practices with your chief compliance officer and counsel.
