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I
get a lot of interesting questions when I tell people that I practice Probate
law in Tennessee. One of the things that
is most confusing to people is how to know when an actual estate needs to be
opened for their loved one. As a general
rule, Tennessee probate estates only need to be opened when there are
probate assets. Probate assets include bank accounts that are
not joint and do not have any “pay on death” or “transfer on death”
designations. Other probate assets
include real estate when there is no joint, right of survivorship,
co-owner. Probate assets can also
include life insurance policies and retirement accounts that do not have a
beneficiary or that list the estate as the beneficiary. These are the most common probate assets that
can require an estate to be opened in Tennessee.
A
lot of family members who do not receive anything from an estate can be very
confused by these rules. They are often
upset because they never see a will or any probate filings. What I tell them is that if all of the assets
are disposed of by other methods (joint ownership of
real property, beneficiary designations on accounts or joint ownership of
accounts)
then they may never see the will or any details concerning what happened to the
assets. There is no central database
that allows people to find this information out simply by searching (however,
when an estate is opened, it is public record).
Banks, life insurance companies and mutual fund companies will simply
quietly disperse the funds to the beneficiaries pursuant to the wishes of the
decedent assuming the information they are provided matches their records and
policies.
All
of this being said, this does not mean that on occasion, sometimes people
manipulate the system and get access to accounts and assets improperly. If you suspect this, often the only thing you
can do is to try to force the issue by opening an estate and have an
administrator appointed (or be the executor) so that you can investigate and
determine if things were handled correctly.
This costs money but I would highly recommend you hire an attorney to
assist with this kind of situation if there is a true concern.
Follow me on Twitter at @jasonalee for updates from the Tennessee Wills and Estates
blog.
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