Do I need to probate my late wife's will before I can transfer a joined LLC property to my name?

Please accept my condolences on the loss of your wife. As for your question, unless the LLC's operating agreement itself specifically provides for a deceased owner's interest to transfer automatically to the surviving owner (which is not that common, based on my experience, but I have seen it once), then yes, you will likely need to deal with your wife's estate in order to transfer her interest in the LLC to yourself. (I am assuming that she did not own her LLC interest through any revocable or irrevocable trust and that it became part of her probate estate at her death.) When I say "deal with" the estate, that means (A) offer her Will for probate and then administer the estate in accordance with the Will, or (B) file a Petition for Year's Support and ask the probate court to award the LLC interest, along with all other assets in your wife's probate estate, to you as part of the year's support award. Either may be a viable option. Whether one option is better than the other depends on a number of factors, including whether there are likely to be any creditors.

The process of offering a Will for probate or filing a year's support petition should generally be handled by an attorney who focuses on probate and estate and trust administration matters, and who works in the county where your wife had her principal residence. You can find such an attorney by looking at the Super Lawyers list or by looking at other legal directories and looking for attorneys who work in areas such as probate, estate planning, or trusts and estates. For a budget, that's difficult to say, but generally a probate matter that's relatively simple will be anywhere from $2000 to $8000 in fees. The fewer the assets, the better-drafted the Will, the fewer the heirs, and the fewer the assets in the probate estate, often the cheaper it is.

Best wishes to you.