Article on the Texas Estates Code

William D. Pargaman (Saunders, Norval, Pargaman & Atkins, LLP) recently published an article entitled, The Story of the Texas Estates Code, Estate Planning and Community Property Law Journal, Vol. 6 No. 2, 323-373 (2014).  Provided below is the article’s introduction: 

On January 1, 2014, our new Estates Code replaced Texas’ beloved Probate Code, which has been with us for almost six decades—these changes were enacted into law in 2009, 2011, and 2013, and they went into effect on January 1, 2014.  But, the story of the Texas Estates Code goes back more than half a century.

Here’s what this article will attempt to discuss: Texas’ fifty-year-old continuing statutory revision program; the backstory behind our Probate Code, the reasons why Texas replaced the Probate Code with the Estates Code; the process of drafting the Estates Code; the organization of the Estates Code; substantive changes that were included with the enactment of the Estates Code; and a few free resources the reader may find helpful.

Portions of this article have been adapted from legislative updates that I have previously written for the 2009 through 2013 legislative sessions.  In addition, while not cited directly, an article by T. Aaron Dobbs aided in the writing of, and provided a number of authorities cited in, this article.