Significant changes to Section 128A notices to beneficiaries
This is one of a series of posts about 2011 legislation.
The 2007 amendment to Probate Code Section 128A caused much grumbling among probate lawyers. It required the personal representative of a testate decedent to send certified mail notices to (or obtain waivers from) all beneficiaries named in the will. The 2007 changes were a rush job to address concerns expressed in the Legislature over a sensational case in Travis County in which an independent executor was accused of misappropriating estate funds without ever telling the estate beneficiaries that he was the executor and that they had an interest in the estate. Because it was a rush job, 2007’s Section 128A was rough around the edges and went further than has proven to be necessary.
SB 1198 amends Section 128A to make the rules about notices to beneficiaries much easier to meet. Here are the key changes:
The notice does not have to be given to a beneficiary who is receiving $2,000 or less worth of property or who has received all gifts to which he or she is entitled within 60 days of the order admitting the will to probate.
The notice or waiver need not include a copy of the will and the order admitting it to probate if it includes a written summary of the gifts to the beneficiary under the will, the court in which the will was admitted to probate, the docket number assigned to the estate, the date the will was admitted to probate and, if different, the date the court appointed the personal representative.
The personal representative does not need to notify a beneficiary of a trust whose right to receive income distributions is at the sole discretion of the trustee if the trustee has given the notice to an ancestor of the beneficiary and there is no apparent conflict of interest between the ancestor and the beneficiary. This change may offer some help in the case of trusts permitting distributions to all of a person’s descendants, but it will not help if the distribution standard is based on the health, education, maintenance and support needs of the beneficiary, since this is not a wholly discretionary standard.
SB 1198 clarifies that notices are not required if the will is probated as a muniment of title and that notices are not required to a person whose interest arises on the occurrence of a contingency which has not occurred.
The changes made by SB 1198 apply to the estate of a decedent dying on or after September 1, 2011. The old law must be followed for persons dying before that date.