What is probate? You might hear or read a lot that the point of estate planning is to avoid probate. Probate is simply a court system. It's a court system. Every state has their own probate court system where a judge says who is in charge of an estate. So if you pass away, who's in charge of making sure that your assets go to the heirs who are legally entitled to them.
It's also the court system to make sure that if someone, whether it's a minor child or incapacitated adult, has someone else that a judge has selected to be in charge of that person's assets and that person's medical decision making.
So the probate court is, one way to think of it is that it's a plan, so to speak, for those without a plan. If you haven't done estate planning to avoid probate, you're leaving it up to a probate judge to figure out who's in charge of your finances if you're incapacitated, who's guardian of your children if something happens to you and you leave minor children, who's in charge of getting your assets gathered and inventoried and paying your creditors and, ultimately, distributing your estate out to your heirs. That's where a probate judge is having to fill in the gaps.
It is a court proceeding. When your family members or loved ones have to go through probate to help you or your estate, they get a case number. It's just like any other legal proceeding in that court records are public and a judge is deciding things along the way.
Probate is not a must when it comes to estate planning. You can try to avoid probate with your estate plan if you sit down to actually put these things in writing ahead of time, but to the extent that any estate planning you did online or do it yourself missed a few key components or to the extent you didn't do an estate plan at all, then probate is kind of the fill in the gap for your plan.