The House Judiciary Committee heard SB 18 concerning various probate matters sponsored by Rep. Torr and authored by Sen. Brown. The introduced version of this bill was prepared by the probate code study commission. The bill provides:
- an expansion of the definition of a health care representative;
- a procedure to transfer the interest of certain single member, limited liability companies to a legatee or heir of the member upon the member’s death;
- an affiant is required to send a copy of certain affidavits concerning a small estate to the estate recovery unit of the office of Medicaid policy and planning (unit);
- a fiduciary is required to send a copy of a verified statement concerning the closing of a decedent’s estate to the unit if the decedent was at least 55 years of age at the time of death and if a notice of estate administration was not previously served upon the unit;
- a claim against a decedent’s estate by the unit is forever barred if the unit fails to take certain actions within a specified period of time;
- a personal representative or a trustee is not required to distribute particular assets based upon the potential gain or loss that a distributee would realize if the assets were sold;
- a document creating a power of attorney that does not contain a notary and preparation statement may be recorded with the county recorder if the document meets certain criteria;
- signature formats for an attorney in fact to use when signing an instrument on behalf of a principal;
- recording requirements when including cross-references to a previously recorded document;
- a defintion for a “qualified real property order”;
- a new form of recordable affidavit and creates a qualified real property order to provide missing legal descriptions and tax parcel identification numbers for real property that is transferred or divided;
- a process for filing and recording the affidavit and a qualified real property order;
- the endorsement of the county auditor is required to record a transfer on death deed and instrument;
- who an owner may designate as a grantee in a beneficiary designation instrument; and,
- the form and scope of a transfer on death instrument.
The Committee adopted an amendment by consent that removes the requirement that a small estate affidavit be sent into the Medicaid unit and removes the language that creates a new qualified real property order. A representative from the Probate, Trust & Real Property (PTRP) Section of the Indiana State Bar Association testified in support of the bill. The amended bill passed 9-0.
Read the bill at: https://iga.in.gov/legislative/2024/bills/senate/18