2011 Legislation

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The 82nd Texas Legislature ended its regular session May 30, 2011. All probate, guardianship and trust bills passed during the session have been signed by the Governor, and most become effective September 1, 2011. One bill in the first called session (SB 1) contains guardianship changes and, as of July 8, 2011, was awaiting the Governor's signature. Each bill affecting probate, guardianship and trust law is listed below. Click here to search for a particular bill, or use the list of topics and key words to the right to find legislation.

Useful links:

Texas Legislature Online.
Glenn Karisch's 2011 Legislative Update.
Bill Pargaman's 2011 Legislative Update -- All of the bills, the full text of all of the changes to the probate and trust codes and helpful forms.
Top Ten Things to Do Now -- Glenn Karisch's list of ten things estate planning and probate attorneys should do to address the legislative changes taking effect September 1, 2011. Here are the pdf and blog versions.

All bills are labeled "Awaiting Governor's Signature," "Enacted," or "Did Not Pass."
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Entries in SB 1197 (1)

Friday

Mar042011

Enacted-Effective 9/1/11: SB 1197 -- REPTL trust bill

Caption: Relating to trusts.
Author: Rodriguez
Bill History
Bill Text

Relevance: This bill is supported by the Real Estate, Probate and Trust Law Section of the State Bar of Texas and makes several minor or technical changes to the Texas Trust Code. It:

Contains a special extension of the disclaimer deadline to match the extension in the 2010 tax law. (Section 112.010)
Makes a slight change in the forfeiture (in terrorem) statute -- "just cause" must have existed for bringing the action, not "probable cause." (Section 112.038)
Allows waiver of notice of nonjudicial divisions and combinations of trusts. (Section 112.057)
Makes clear that a county court at law exercising the jurisdiction over a trust given it by Section 4B of the Probate Code has trust jurisdiction. (Section 115.001)
Makes venue in a trust case proper in a court in which an estate is pending. (Section 115.002)
Removes a beneficiary whose interest has been distributed, extinguished, terminated or paid from the list of necessary parties to trust litigation. (Section 115.011)
Makes a couple of technical changes to the Texas Uniform Principal and Income Act (Sections 116.005 and 116.205)

See "REPTL bills would make changes to trusts, guardianships and powers of attorney" on texasprobate.com.