Tennessee

Tennessee has not adopted the Uniform Probate Code. Estates are heard in Chancery Court in
most counties, and in a dedicated Probate Court in a few of the largest — Shelby and
Davidson among them. The court issues letters testamentary.

Common form or solemn form

Like Georgia, Tennessee offers two routes:
- Common form is quicker and does not require formal notice to the heirs beforehand, but
leaves the will open to challenge for a period afterwards.
- Solemn form requires notice to the interested parties before admission, and produces a
result that binds those who were served.

Choose deliberately. The time saved by common form is small next to the finality solemn form
buys.

You may not need probate

An estate of $50,000 or less in personal property can often be handled by small estate
affidavit, filed with the clerk at least 45 days after death. That lets the collector
gather and distribute bank accounts and vehicles without opening an administration. Confirm the
current threshold with the clerk before assuming.

No death tax

Tennessee's inheritance tax was fully phased out for deaths on or after 1 January 2016, and
there is no estate or gift tax. Only the federal return can arise, and for nearly all estates it
does not. Older Tennessee guidance still discusses the inheritance tax — ignore it.

What the executor must do

Notice to creditors by publication, direct notice to known creditors, an inventory and
accounting unless the will excuses them, payment of debts, the final income tax returns, and
then distribution. A will that waives inventory, accounting and bond — most well-drafted
Tennessee wills do — makes the administration considerably lighter.

An attested Tennessee will must be in writing, signed by the testator, and signed by
two witnesses who saw the testator sign or acknowledge the signature. The testator must be
18 or older and of sound mind.

Holographic wills are valid

Tennessee accepts a handwritten will with no witnesses at all, provided the signature and
all the material provisions are in the testator's own handwriting. At probate it must be
proved by two witnesses who can identify the handwriting.

That is a lower bar than North Carolina's three witnesses, but it still means someone has to be
found and produced years later — and it still leaves out the residue clause and the alternate
executor that a homemade will always forgets.

Tennessee still recognises oral wills

This is genuinely unusual in modern American law. A nuncupative — spoken — will can be valid
in Tennessee where the testator was in imminent peril of death and died from that peril,
declared their wishes before witnesses, and the narrow statutory conditions are met. It reaches
only limited personal property.

Do not plan around it. It exists for a soldier under fire or a person dying after an accident,
not as an alternative to writing something down.

Practical points

• Waive bond, inventory and accounting expressly in the will. This is the single clause that
  most reduces the cost of a Tennessee administration.
• Name an alternate executor.
• Attach a self-proving affidavit before a notary so no witness need be located later.
• A surviving spouse has an elective share and year's support rights whatever the will says.
• Review after a marriage, divorce, birth or a move to Tennessee.

Yes. A Tennessee personal representative is entitled to reasonable compensation, which
the court reviews and approves. Tennessee sets no statutory percentage at all.

What the court looks at

The size and nature of the estate, the time actually spent, the responsibility assumed, the
skill the work required, the difficulty of the problems encountered, and the result achieved.
Practitioners often propose a percentage as a starting point, but no percentage is prescribed
and the court is free to disregard one.

Records decide it

With no tariff, the executor's contemporaneous log of time and tasks is the whole of the
justification. Start it in the first week. Reconstructing eighteen months of work from memory,
in front of a beneficiary who thinks the fee is too high, is a losing position.

Approval

Compensation is either agreed in writing by all the beneficiaries, or allowed by the
court on the accounting. Where the will has waived accountings — as many Tennessee wills do —
the beneficiaries' written agreement is the only approval that exists, so get it before taking
anything.

If the will fixes the figure

A will provision governs where the executor accepts the appointment on those terms. A legacy to
the executor may be intended in place of a fee — read the wording before assuming both are
available.

Tax

Compensation is taxable income to the executor; an inheritance is not. Since Tennessee has
no estate or inheritance tax for the fee to be deducted against, there is no offsetting
benefit to the estate. A family executor who is also a beneficiary is very often better off
simply declining the fee and taking a larger share. Worth an accountant's view first.

A Tennessee executor is reimbursed from the estate for the reasonable expenses of
administering it, separately from any compensation for their time.

Normally claimable

• Funeral, burial or cremation, the headstone, and a reasonable reception.
• Court costs, certified letters testamentary, certified death certificates, and publication
  of the notice to creditors, which Tennessee requires.
• Attorney's fees, and accountant's fees for the final Form 1040 and any Form 1041.
• Appraisals of real property, farmland, vehicles, firearms, instruments and collections.
• Carrying costs on estate property until sale: insurance, property tax, utilities, security,
  maintenance, lawn care and pest control.
• Storm damage mitigation — tarping a roof, tree removal after a spring storm — on estate
  property.
• Cleaning, clearing, storing, moving and shipping contents.
• Travel on estate business at a reasonable rate.
• Bond premiums where the will did not waive bond.

Normally not claimable

• The executor's lost wages, meals near home, or personal spending — that is what compensation
  covers.
• Costs run up for one beneficiary's convenience rather than the estate's.
• Improvements beyond preparing a property for sale as it stands.
• Anything without a receipt.

The rule that decides it

Open an estate bank account and run every payment through it. Tennessee wills commonly
waive the inventory and accounting, which sounds like a saving and quietly removes the
discipline that would otherwise force good records. If nobody is requiring an account, the
executor still has to be able to produce one on demand — so keep the ledger as though the court
were going to read it.

Most Tennessee estates are administered by a family member, and a will that waives bond,
inventory and accounting makes that genuinely light work. A bank trust department or an
attorney serving as executor earns its cost in narrower cases.

Consider a professional when

• The will is holographic or, worse, nuncupative, so the handwriting or the
  circumstances have to be proved by witnesses and a contest is more likely.
• The estate holds an operating business, a farm, or rental property that has to keep
  running.
• There is conflict among the beneficiaries, or a will contest looks likely — which will
  push the matter into solemn form and possibly into litigation.
• A beneficiary is a minor or incapacitated, so a trust runs for years.
• A surviving spouse is likely to claim the elective share against a will that provides for
  them thinly, which puts the executor between the spouse and the other beneficiaries.
• The named executor lives out of state. Tennessee generally requires a non-resident
  executor to appoint a resident agent, and may require bond even where the will waived it.

What it costs

Corporate fiduciaries charge a negotiated percentage with a minimum annual fee. Attorneys
generally bill hourly. Since Tennessee prescribes no percentage, ask specifically what they
will charge and on what basis, in writing.

Middle ground

Appoint a family member, waive bond, inventory and accounting in the will, and let them
retain a probate attorney at the estate's expense. For the great majority of Tennessee estates
that combination is both cheapest and entirely adequate.

A named executor who does not want the job can renounce before qualifying.