Eight to eighteen months in court, three to fifteen thousand dollars in fees, the entire estate filed as public record — or a single afternoon at the notary now. The Homeowner Probate Shield is the second option.
Probate is not a paperwork formality. It is a court process the family enters at the worst possible moment — and stays in for a year or more.
The cruelty of probate is not the cost. It is the timing. Your spouse is grieving, trying to manage the household, and now also stuck in a court process for a year. They cannot move forward financially because the asset that represents the family’s biggest investment is frozen.
None of this is necessary. Arizona law provides the tools to make it not happen. The Homeowner Probate Shield is built around those tools.
One primary, one backstop. The house never has to enter the probate process because two separate documents keep it out.
A trust that holds your home and major assets during your life. You stay in control. You can move things in and out. You can sell the house, refinance it, take a HELOC — everything works the same as before.
The difference comes at the end. When you die, the assets inside the trust transfer directly to the people you named — no court, no months of delay, no thousands in fees, no public filing. The trust simply does what you told it to do.
The work that makes this possible is called trust funding: actually moving the house, the bank accounts, and the major assets into the trust’s ownership. Most DIY trusts fail because the funding never happens. The Homeowner Probate Shield includes the funding service.
A recorded deed that names the person who receives the house the moment you die. Recorded with the county right now, sits dormant during your life, then automatically transfers the property at death.
The Beneficiary Deed is the backstop. Even if something happens to the trust funding — you refinance and forget to move the house back, you buy a new property and never get around to retitling — the Beneficiary Deed catches it.
Two documents covering each other. The trust does most of the work; the deed handles the gaps. That is the shield.
Not a stack of templates with a “good luck” attached. Documents drafted to Arizona law, plus the funding work that actually puts them into effect.
The legal documents that hold the trust together. Drafted to Arizona law.
This is what most providers leave you to handle yourself. We do it.
Most homeowners have a gap. We find it before it matters.
Estate planning is not a one-time event. The plan needs to stay accurate.
Estate planning and life insurance are usually treated as separate problems by separate professionals. They are not separate problems. The Homeowner Probate Shield includes the analysis that ties them together.
Your life insurance and your trust are supposed to work together. Often they do not. The beneficiary on your old policy still names an ex-spouse. The death benefit was set when the house was worth $250,000 and the house is now worth $550,000. The group policy through work disappears the day you retire, and was never replaced.
Roughly 70% of homeowners I review have at least one meaningful gap.
I look at your current coverage against your actual mortgage balance, your spouse’s income needs, and the way the trust is structured. You get a written analysis. If everything is aligned, you get written documentation that it is. If there is a gap, you decide whether to address it. No pressure either way — the analysis is included, not the sale.
Four ways to address probate avoidance for a homeowner. Here is how they compare on price and on what they actually deliver.
The work, done six months earlier,
replaces a year in court with an afternoon at the notary.
Most homeowners begin with the consultation. Some watch the masterclass first. Either path leads to the same place.
Thirty minutes. We discuss your home, your family, and whether the Homeowner Probate Shield is the right fit — or whether a different plan serves you better. No pressure, no closing.
Schedule a callA 45-minute foundation on Arizona estate planning, with a dedicated section on the homeowner’s situation. Watch on your own time, then decide whether to schedule.
Register & watch