Pour-Over Will

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 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.

Uniform Testamentary Additions to Trusts Act text: a devise may be made to the trustee of a trust established or to be established by the testator or others if the trust is identified in the will and its terms are set…

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 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…

The exceptions to the omitted-spouse share: the will shows an intentional omission, the testator provided outside the will with that intent, or the spouse WAIVED the right by a valid agreement.

A child born or adopted after all testamentary instruments were executed and not provided for takes an intestate share, with the exceptions in section 21621.

The chapter does not invalidate any devise made by a will executed before September 17, 1965. Read it only for older instruments. This source alone does not establish the validity of a particular devise.

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.

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…

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…

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.

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.

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 marriage, after-born child and divorce revocation rules in 45a-257a to 45a-257c apply ONLY to wills executed on or after January 1, 1997.

A devise purporting to convey all the testator's real property carries what the testator owned at death, not only at execution, unless the will clearly says otherwise.

Property that passes subject to a lien or security interest carries that encumbrance; the debt is NOT exonerated out of the rest of the estate unless the will says so.

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

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.

How a non-resident executor or administrator acts in Delaware, including by power of attorney. Warn a client naming an out-of-state fiduciary that there are extra steps.

Whether rents and profits of real estate are estate assets, and the fiduciary's possession and repair obligations. Guidance for an executor holding rental property.

What to do when assets surface after the inventory is filed. Common, and it has a procedure.

Whether a will reaches real estate acquired after execution. Relevant for a client who buys property after signing; a clear residuary clause avoids the question.

An express power of sale in the will, and the protection it gives a purchaser from the executor. Ask whether the client wants one; it avoids a court application later.

How a Delaware will is revoked. Advise executing a new will rather than marking up the old one.

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.

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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.

Voids a devise or legacy to a person who also serves as an attesting witness, though the witness may still take up to what they would have received on intestacy and remains a competent witness.

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…

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Who is qualified to serve. Read with 733.304, which is the section that surprises out-of-state clients.

FLORIDA'S ELECTIVE SHARE IS 30 PER CENT of the elective estate, not one third and not a life estate.

A spouse who married the testator after the will was executed and is not provided for takes an intestate share, subject to the section's exceptions. Marriage does not revoke the will but it rewrites the spouse's share.

A child born or adopted after the will is executed and not provided for takes a share, with narrow exceptions. Where a client may have more children, say expressly how they are treated.

A lifetime transfer of homestead property, including to a trust, is effective as the section provides and is not a devise. One of the planning routes around the section 732.4015 restriction;

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…

Maryland text allowing a legacy to the trustee of a testamentary trust under another will, with the conditions on execution, probate within nine months and admission to probate that the section states.

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…

Defines electronic, electronic presence (two or more individuals communicating in real time by electronic audio-visual means to the same extent as if physically present), electronic will, certified paper copy,…

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…

A provision purporting to penalize an interested person for contesting the will or instituting other proceedings relating to the estate is void if probable cause existed for instituting the proceedings.

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 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.

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

A no-contest clause is unenforceable where there is probable cause for the proceeding. Do not promise a client an in terrorem clause will deter a contest with a real basis.

Divorce or annulment revokes dispositions and fiduciary nominations in favour of the former spouse, and reaches certain NONPROBATE transfers as well.

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.

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;

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.

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.

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.

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…

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

New Jersey Testamentary Additions to Trusts Law text: a will may validly devise property to the trustee of a trust established, or to be established, during the testator's lifetime by the testator or another person,…

A devise made under 3B:4-2 is not invalid because the trust is amendable or revocable, or because the trust was amended after the will was executed or after the testator's death.

A spouse or domestic partner who married or partnered the testator after the will was executed takes no less than an intestate share, unless the will appears to have been made in contemplation of that marriage or…

A child born or adopted after the will is executed takes an intestate share if the testator had no living child when the will was made (unless substantially everything went to the child's other parent), or shares…

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 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…

Pour-over text: a testator may by will dispose of or appoint all or part of the estate to the trustee of a trust whose terms are evidenced by a written instrument, whether or not assets were transferred before death,…

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

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 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.

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.

New York: under EPTL 3-2.1, the testator signs at the end, or a directed signer signs in the testator's presence, adds their own signature and residence address, and cannot count as an attesting witness.

An attesting witness who is also a beneficiary is competent, but the disposition to that witness is void unless there are at least two other attesting witnesses who receive nothing under the will;

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 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 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…

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.

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.

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.

A no-contest clause in a will or trust is UNENFORCEABLE against a person who had probable cause to bring the proceeding.

The personal representative takes possession of estate property and collects rents, EXCEPT real estate occupied at death by an heir or devisee with the decedent's consent.

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

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 family exemption is awarded to the surviving spouse in distribution like any other share, with no right to pick particular assets. Mention the exemption when a client asks what a spouse gets regardless of the will.

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.

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.

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.

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…

The statutory form and requirements for a Texas self-proving affidavit. Use the statutory wording; a near-miss affidavit does not self-prove the will.

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.

TEXAS'S MUNIMENT OF TITLE, a probate route with no administration where there are no unpaid debts other than those secured by real property. It is fast and cheap and is the right answer for many simple Texas estates;

What the application to probate as a muniment of title must contain. The cheap Texas route where there are no unpaid debts other than those secured by real property.

Texas text stating that property may be added to an existing trust from any source in any manner unless the addition is prohibited by the terms of the trust or the property is unacceptable to the trustee.

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.

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 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.

The augmented estate is the probate estate plus non-probate transfers to others, transfers to the spouse and the spouse's own property, multiplied by a marriage-duration percentage that runs from 3 percent under one…

A will or codicil, its signature, or a provision of it is void where the testator, or another at his direction and in his presence, cuts, tears, burns, obliterates, cancels, or destroys it with intent to revoke.

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.

A second self-proving route lets the testator and witnesses acknowledge the will before an officer instead of swearing separate affidavits about the execution facts.