Last Will and Testament

A California will may refer to a SEPARATE WRITING directing the disposition of tangible personal property, subject to the section's value limits per item and in total, and it may be prepared or changed after the will is…

The order of succession for the part not passing to the spouse: issue, then parents, then issue of parents, then grandparents and their issue, on the section's ladder. Check where the line stops.

The attorney's statutory fee on the same percentage schedule as the representative's. Quote both together when explaining the real cost of a California probate.

THE COMMUNITY PROPERTY SPLIT. The surviving spouse takes ALL of the decedent's community property and quasi-community property.

Where spouses die simultaneously, community and quasi-community property is administered as if each spouse survived as to their own half. Relevant to any California plan resting on survivorship.

CALIFORNIA STATUTORY PROBATE FEES: a percentage of the GROSS value of the estate for the personal representative, with section 10810 giving the attorney the same schedule.

The classes of estate debts and the order in which they are paid. Use it when advising on an insolvent estate; do not let a representative pay out of turn.

The SMALL ESTATE AFFIDAVIT route for personal property under the statutory threshold, available 40 days after death without probate. The threshold is adjusted periodically;

The affidavit procedure for real property of small value, distinct from the section 13150 petition. Check the current limits before opening a full probate.

A spouse who married the testator AFTER all testamentary instruments were executed and is not provided for takes a share equal to what they would have received in intestacy: one half of the community property, one half…

A spouse who married the testator AFTER the will was executed and is not provided for takes the INTESTATE share, unless the will shows the omission was intentional or the testator provided for the spouse outside the…

Connecticut: section 45a-251 requires a written will or codicil subscribed by the testator and attested by two witnesses who each subscribe in the testator's presence.

An after-born or after-adopted child not provided for takes a share computed under this section, which also reaches a child born through assisted reproduction and a child born after the testator's death.

THE MOST IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE IN CONNECTICUT ESTATES. The surviving spouse's elective share is a LIFE ESTATE OF ONE THIRD in value of the property passing under the will, not an outright third as in Pennsylvania or New…

Dissolution, divorce or annulment automatically revokes gifts to the former spouse, any power of appointment conferred on them, and any nomination of them as executor, trustee, conservator or guardian, UNLESS the will…

The Probate Court may allow support for the surviving spouse or family out of the estate during settlement, including in a small estate, and may address the family car.

The payment order in a Connecticut estate: funeral expenses first, then expenses of settling the estate, then the classes the section lists.

The spouse's intestate share: the entire estate with no issue or parent; $100,000 plus three quarters of the balance where a parent but no issue survives;

Probate courts may construe how sections 45a-257 to 45a-257c apply to wills admitted in their districts. The route when the automatic revocation rules interact awkwardly with a particular will.

How a will's reference to federal estate tax and marital deduction provisions is construed. Relevant to any formula marital gift; confirm the formula still does what it was drafted to do under current federal law.

An heir must survive the decedent by 120 HOURS to take. A survivorship clause in the will controls instead and is the cleaner answer; include one.

A will may refer to a SEPARATE WRITING disposing of tangible personal property, which may be prepared or changed after the will is signed. The memorandum clients actually use for personal effects;

Choice-of-law alternatives for execution and self-proof of a written signed will. Section 202 is not the only route; determine the relevant place and time before applying another jurisdiction’s execution law.

What personal property forms the estate, with the section's exceptions including employee death benefits. Useful for deciding what actually passes under the will.

The order of succession after the spouse: issue, then parents, then brothers and sisters and their issue, then the section's remaining classes. Check where the line stops.

How 'child' and related terms apply for intestacy, covering adoption and children born outside marriage. Say what the client intends where a will uses 'children' or 'issue' in a blended family.

The election is personal to the spouse, with the section's rules for a spouse who is incapacitated or a minor. An agent needs express authority to elect.

The simultaneous-death chapter does not apply where a will, living trust, deed or insurance contract provides a different distribution. Read the actual instrument before choosing the statutory distribution.

What counts as a transfer to the spouse and so reduces the elective share. Lifetime provision for a spouse is credited; document it.

Ranks who may serve as personal representative and excludes minors, adjudicated incapacitated persons, certain felons, nonresident aliens, judges and court employees, and nonresidents who fail to file the required…

Gives a surviving spouse or domestic partner the right to renounce testamentary gifts and take an intestate share instead, by filing a written renunciation in Probate Court within six months of the will's admission to…

District of Columbia: for the ordinary written-will route under section 18-103, use a writing signed by the testator or another in the testator's presence and at the testator's express direction, attested and subscribed…

Defines governing instrument to include a will and defines survivorship co-owners and payors. It supplies definitions, not the operative survival period.

Imposes DC's resident estate tax as a graduated schedule above the zero bracket amount, starting at 6.4 percent and rising to 15.2 percent for the estate value between nine and ten million dollars, with a proportional…

A gift may be made via driver's license or ID designation, a will (effective at death regardless of probate status), donor-card or registry enrollment, or, for a terminally ill donor, oral communication to two adults…

Choice-of-law alternatives for an electronic will that does not comply with section 18-905(a), based on location, domicile or residence at the specified times.

Allows revocation either by a later will or writing executed with the same formalities, or by physical act (burning, tearing, cancelling, obliterating) done by the testator or by another at the testator's direction and…

Allows an electronic will to be made self-proving at execution through testator acknowledgment and witness affidavits under oath, certified by an authorized oath officer or remote notary whose seal attaches to the…

The spouse's intestate share: the entire estate where there is no surviving descendant, or where all descendants are also the spouse's and the spouse has no other descendant; otherwise one half.

A will may refer to a SEPARATE WRITING disposing of tangible personal property other than money, signed by the testator and describing items and recipients with reasonable certainty, and it may be changed after the will…

The order of preference for appointment, starting with the personal representative named in the will. Naming one and an alternate keeps the estate out of the queue.

The order in which expenses and claims are paid, and the treatment of a revocable trust's liability. Use it when advising on an insolvent estate; do not let a personal representative pay out of turn.

The order of succession after the spouse: descendants, then parents, then brothers and sisters and their descendants, then the section's remaining classes including the grandparent split. Check where the line stops.

What the elective estate includes, which reaches well beyond the probate estate to revocable trusts, pay-on-death accounts, joint tenancies and certain transfers within a year of death.

Florida: under section 732.502, the testator signs at the end or directs another to sign the testator's name in the testator's presence.

Revoking a Florida will by a later writing. Advise executing a new will rather than annotating the old one.

A penalty clause for contesting a will is UNENFORCEABLE in Florida, without the probable-cause qualifier other states use. Do not promise a client an in terrorem clause will deter a contest here; it does nothing.

Electronic signing and presence alternatives, conditioned on the referenced online-notary procedures, authentication, acknowledgment and supervised witnessing.

A guardian of the property is appointed by the court on petition, after any required notice and hearing, where a minor owns or is entitled to property that requires management or protection, and § 13-207 then sets the…

Unless prohibited by agreement or court order, the surviving parent of a minor may appoint by will one or more guardians and successor guardians of the person of an unmarried minor, and that guardian need not be…

Letters in administrative or judicial probate are granted in a fixed order of priority, beginning with the personal representative named in a will admitted to probate, then the surviving spouse and children of an…

A person nominated by a deceased parent's will ranks only fifth in the court's priority list for guardian of a minor's property, so the nomination is a factor rather than an appointment.

Unless the will or other governing instrument directs otherwise, the Maryland estate tax is apportioned among all persons interested in the estate in proportion to the value of each interest, with special rules for…

Unless the user prohibited disclosure or a court directs otherwise, a custodian must disclose to the personal representative a catalogue of electronic communications and the user's other digital assets, on the same…

A will is not revoked by the later birth, adoption or legitimation of a child except in the marriage-plus-child circumstance of § 4-105(3), but that child, or the issue of such a child who does not survive the testator,…

The after-born or after-adopted child receives the lesser of the intestate share or the value of the legacies made to the testator's children under the will, which means a will that gave nothing to any child gives the…

A surviving spouse may elect one third of the estate subject to election if there is surviving issue, or one half if there is none, in each case reduced by the value of all spousal benefits.

Unless a contrary intent is expressly indicated in the will, a legacy does not lapse when the legatee dies after execution and before the testator, and the property is distributed directly from the testator's estate to…

The order of succession after the spouse: descendants, then parents, then descendants of parents, then grandparents and their descendants. Check where the section stops before assuming a distant relative takes.

A will may refer to a SEPARATE WRITING disposing of tangible personal property other than money, which may be prepared or altered after the will is signed.

The order of priority for appointment as personal representative, starting with the person named in the will. Naming a personal representative and an alternate keeps the estate out of this queue.

A person may NOMINATE their own guardian in a will or other signed writing, and the court gives that nomination effect on the terms the section states.

How estate taxes are apportioned among those who receive property, unless the will directs otherwise. A tax clause in the will is what overrides this default; decide deliberately who bears the tax.

A person whose survival of an event is not established is deemed to predecease it, subject to subsection (d). The operative text does not impose 120 hours.

What passes by intestacy, including a partial intestacy where the will does not dispose of everything. The reason a residuary clause matters.

The spouse's intestate share: the ENTIRE estate where no descendant or parent survives, or where all the decedent's descendants are also the spouse's and the spouse has no other descendant;

A child born or adopted after the will is executed and not provided for takes a share computed under this section, with narrow exceptions.

For construing a will, a person not shown by clear and convincing evidence to have survived an event, including another's death, by 120 hours is deemed to have predeceased it, with co-owner rules for survivorship…

Without a will the surviving spouse, civil union partner or domestic partner takes the entire estate when no descendant or parent survives, or when all surviving descendants are also the spouse's and the spouse has no…

A surviving spouse, civil union partner or domestic partner of a New Jersey domiciliary may elect one-third of the augmented estate, unless either spouse had filed an undismissed complaint for divorce, dissolution,…

A will may refer to a written statement or list disposing of items of tangible personal property not otherwise specifically disposed of by the will, but the section does not reach money.

Names the act that governs how an executor, agent, guardian or trustee reaches a person's online accounts. Cite it whenever a will or power of attorney carries a digital assets clause.

Unless the governing instrument, a court order or a marital property contract provides otherwise, a divorce or annulment revokes revocable dispositions, appointments, powers of appointment and fiduciary or…

New Jersey: under section 3B:3-2(a), the written will is signed by the testator or in the testator's name by another in the testator's conscious presence and at the testator's direction.

A resident's will is probated in the surrogate's court of the county of residence at death or in the Superior Court;

A will, or any provision of it, is not invalid because the will is signed by an interested witness.

Section 1-2.14 defines per stirpes for persons taking as issue of a deceased ancestor. At the nearest generation containing surviving issue, divide for each survivor and each deceased member who left surviving issue.

Section 1-2.16 defines by representation for persons taking as issue of a deceased ancestor.

Section 2-1.2 distinguishes dispositions to issue by execution date, unless a contrary intention is expressed.

EPTL 3-4.1(a)(1) permits revocation or alteration of a will or part by another will or a sufficiently expressed writing executed with will formalities.

EPTL 5-3.2 applies when the after-born child is unprovided for by settlement and neither provided for nor mentioned in the will.

Unless the will directs otherwise in words that refer to this section, estate taxes are apportioned among the recipients of the taxed property, including non-probate recipients, in proportion to the value each receives,…

EPTL 2-1.6 generally requires clear and convincing evidence of survival by 120 hours for the dispositions it covers.

Unless the will provides otherwise, section 3-3.3 saves the covered disposition to the testator's issue or a brother or sister who dies during the testator's lifetime leaving issue who survive the testator;

A divorce, annulment, declaration of nullity or dissolution revokes by operation of law every disposition, appointment of property, fiduciary nomination and power of appointment in favor of the former spouse, and the…

Every person eighteen years of age or over, of sound mind and memory, may make a will and may exercise a testamentary power of appointment.

A testator may devise or appoint property to the trustee of a trust already in existence, which is Ohio's pour-over provision. Name the trust by its exact name and date so the gift is identifiable.

A surviving spouse elects to take under the will or under section 2105.06. A spouse electing under 2105.06 takes the intestate share but SHALL TAKE NOT TO EXCEED ONE-HALF OF THE NET ESTATE, OR ONE-THIRD IF TWO OR MORE…

The effect of the spouse's election on other interests. Do the arithmetic before advising a spouse to elect against the will.

The defined terms for Ohio's simultaneous death provisions, which decide who is treated as surviving whom. A survivorship clause in the will controls instead and is the cleaner answer; include one.

The priority of personal property taxes among estate obligations. Read with section 2117.25's order of payment.

The defined terms for Ohio's Trust Code, which governs any trust a will pours into. Read before drafting a pour-over gift or a testamentary trust.

Ohio's intestacy scheme. The spouse's share depends on whether the surviving children are also the spouse's: the whole estate where they are, and a first-dollar amount plus a fraction where one or more are not, on the…

Lists operative common-disaster language, express survival terms, perpetuities and multiple-instrument exceptions to the 120-hour requirement, retaining the stated proof requirements.

The spouse's election is generally made IN PERSON before the court, with the exceptions the section allows. Tell a spouse considering an election that it is a court appearance, not a letter.

The election is personal and must be exercised during the spouse's lifetime, by an agent only with the specific authority the power of attorney sections require, and by a guardian for a minor or incapacitated spouse.

The spouse's intestate share depends on who else survives: the whole estate with no issue or parent;

A claimed surviving spouse may testify about matters bearing on the elective share, except as to the creation of the spousal status itself. Relevant when the marriage is disputed.

The simultaneous-death chapter does not apply where a will, living trust, deed or insurance contract provides a different distribution. Compare the exact instrument language.

The order of succession after the spouse: issue, then parents, then brothers and sisters or their issue, then grandparents, then uncles and aunts and their children and grandchildren.

The statutory share replaces common-law dower and curtesy. Nothing further to draft; relevant only if an old instrument or title objection raises dower.

An adopted person inherits as the issue of the adopting parents and generally not from the natural family, with an exception for natural kin who maintained a family relationship and for a stepparent adoption.

The election is a signed writing filed with the clerk of the orphans' court in the county of domicile, with notice to the personal representative, and it must be filed before SIX MONTHS after the decedent's death or the…

The orphans' court of the domicile decides all questions about the election, including property outside Pennsylvania, and the section covers enforcement and contribution among those whose interests are reduced.

A will also counts as validly executed if it complied with the law of the place where the testator was domiciled at execution or at death. Useful for a client who signed elsewhere and later moved;

The one-step route: execute, attest and self-prove at the same time using the combined statutory form. Fewer signatures and fewer chances to get it wrong; prefer it.

What happens when a devise fails and how the residuary absorbs it, including where the residuary itself partly fails. The reason a well-drafted residuary clause matters.

Addresses property conditioned on a beneficiary surviving another person and separately divides among alternative beneficiaries who all die within less than 120 hours.

Intestate descent where there is no surviving spouse: to the children and their descendants, then the parents, then siblings, on the section's own ladder. Use it to show a client what happens without the will.

TEXAS IS A COMMUNITY PROPERTY STATE and intestacy splits accordingly. Of the SEPARATE estate, where there are children the spouse takes ONE THIRD OF THE PERSONAL ESTATE and a LIFE ESTATE IN ONE THIRD OF THE LAND, with…

TEXAS'S ANTI-LAPSE RULE, saving a gift for the descendants of a predeceasing devisee who was a descendant of the testator or of the testator's parent, unless the will provides otherwise.

A devisee generally must survive the testator by 120 hours. The will-language exceptions include explicit simultaneous-death/common-disaster language or a requirement to survive the testator, with or without a stated…

Of the COMMUNITY estate, the deceased spouse's half passes entirely to the surviving spouse where there are no children, or where all the surviving children are also the spouse's.

How an adopted child inherits from and through the adoptive and natural families. Say what the client intends where a will uses 'children' or 'descendants' in an adoptive family.

A will may refer to a separate signed written statement or list disposing of tangible personal property not otherwise specifically bequeathed, and that list is given effect even though it fails the formalities for a…

VIRGINIA'S ANTI-LAPSE RULE, registered 2026-09-12 because § 64.2-416 carves it out by number and says nothing about what it contains, so a check resting on § 64.2-416 alone was describing a section Lawsmith had never…

Where the testator already had a child at execution, an omitted after-born or after-adopted child receives the lesser of an intestate share or the largest gift given to a named child.

Defines governing instrument to include a will and defines survivorship co-owners and payors. Apply the operative survival sections and their exceptions separately.

For a donative provision of a governing instrument, survival of an event by 120 hours must be established by clear and convincing evidence, subject to section 64.2-2205.

A will or codicil, or any part of one, revoked under § 64.2-410 is not revived unless the instrument is reexecuted in the manner the law requires, and revival operates only to the extent the testator's intent to revive…

A spouse married after the will was executed and not provided for takes an intestate share unless the will or a marital agreement shows the omission was intentional.

Virginia: section 64.2-403 requires a signed writing, including the directed-signature route.

A user may allow or prohibit disclosure of digital assets through a custodian's online tool or in a will, trust or power of attorney, and that direction overrides a conflicting terms-of-service clause.