What Happens When a Beneficiary Dies Before Probate is Over?

Let’s say that a deceased person creates a will, and the will is in probate. It seems like everything is set to go and everything is in order. But then it happens – a beneficiary dies, in the middle of the probate case. That beneficiary was supposed to receive something from the will. What happens now?

The Language of the Will

This isn’t an uncommon scenario. Many times, beneficiaries may be older, and even if they aren’t nobody knows what can happen to who at any time.

The best way to handle beneficiaries who pass away before a probate case ends, is to handle that contingency within the will itself—your will can and should name backup beneficiaries.

The other thing that a will can include, is what is known as a survival period. This is a period of time, usually between 60-90 days, that the beneficiary must outlive the deceased, to get the inheritance. If the beneficiary does not survive that period, then the property to be inherited is treated as if the beneficiary predeceased, that is, it goes back into the original testator’s (the deceased’s) estate.

When the Will Says Nothing

But if you have no such provision—or if you have one and the beneficiary outlived the time limit on any survival period—the gift to the now deceased beneficiary, is considered to have vested in the beneficiary.

That means that it’s treated as the beneficiary’s property, even though he or she is no longer alive to take it. That’s called an anti-lapse statute. The anti-lapse statute says that if a beneficiary dies before he or she can inherit property, that property does not revert back to the state—the deceased beneficiary’s heirs get that property. The people who ultimately inherit from the deceased beneficiary, must be descendants of the original deceased person (the testator).

At that point, the probate court would look to the deceased beneficiary’s will, to see who gets it under his or her will. If that deceased beneficiary had no will or other estate document, the property will be devised based on Florida’s intestate statutes—laws that say who gets what, when property is not left through a will or trust.

This can create an odd scenario, where the deceased has a probate estate, but one of the beneficiaries is also now an estate (the deceased beneficiary’s estate). So, you can have an estate as a beneficiary of another estate.

Only When the Testator has Already Passed

Note that all of this applies to situations where the deceased has already died, and then a beneficiary dies before the probate case is over, and thus, the beneficiary isn’t around to get what was left to him or her. In situations where a beneficiary dies, but the person with the will (the testator) is still alive, things would not necessarily be handled this way.

A lot of unexpected events can happen in probate court. Let us guide you through the process. Call the West Palm Beach probate lawyers at The Law Offices of Larry E. Bray today for help with your probate case.

Sources:

flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2011/736.1106

repository.law.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3436&context=umlr