Bill > SB428

This bill modifies Missouri's estate planning laws in three key areas: trust administration, electronic wills, and estate planning during the COVID-19 emergency. For trust administration, the bill establishes new rules for transferring a trust's principal place of administration, requiring trustees to provide at least 60 days' notice to qualified beneficiaries before moving a trust, including details about the new location and potential legal implications. The bill introduces a comprehensive framework for electronic wills, defining them and establishing requirements for their creation, execution, and validity, such as requiring electronic wills to be readable, signed by the testator or someone acting on their behalf, and witnessed electronically. Additionally, the bill retrospectively validates certain estate planning documents executed electronically or remotely during the COVID-19 state of emergency (specifically between April 6, 2020, and December 31, 2021), recognizing documents that were signed using video conferencing technology when in-person signatures were not possible. The legislation aims to modernize estate planning practices, provide more flexibility for document execution, and ensure legal continuity during extraordinary circumstances, with most provisions taking effect on August 28, 2025.

Justice

https://www.senate.mo.gov/25info/BTS_Web/Bill.aspx?SessionType=R&BillID=173