I am often asked to explain the benefits to be derived from probating wills as muniments of title when it can be done that way. Here is a recent explanation I gave:
You asked what an estate administration is. It’s a process of settling the debts of a decedent and distributing any remaining property to his beneficiaries. It’s very much like a bankruptcy proceeding or liquidation process.
An estate administration requires following a rule-based process of liquidation, which includes publishing notice to creditors in the newspaper to advise them to submit their claims to the executor. In addition, secured creditors have to be provided notice by certified mail to make their claims against the estate. There is a period of time which must pass for all this process to complete. During that time, the executor must also file a formal Inventory, Appraisement and List of Claims with the court (or documents in lieu thereof, provided the executor represents to the court that the Inventory has been completed and will be made available to creditors and estate beneficiaries). All of this requires time, paperwork and money. It shouldn’t be hugely expensive, but still, it’s work that is unnecessary and which prevents wrapping up the estate quickly.
My understanding is there are no debts other than the mortgage and a few unpaid bills that don’t add up to a lot.
As you can see, the procedure of estate administration is geared toward paying creditors before distributing what remains. If there are no creditors, then there’s no need to publish notices to them and to send them letters in the mail, etc. There’s no need to wait a certain amount of time to see if anyone out there submits a claim. There will be no need for the executor to approve or deny claims, etc.
When there are no debts, other than debts secured by real estate, there’s a simplified type of probate available called a “muniment of title.” This is not a typo, and I didn’t mean to say, “monument.” It’s pronounced: myoon-a-mint.
I’ll show you the statute in a second, but basically, when a will is admitted to probate as a muniment of title, no administration is had on the estate. The court simply enters an order to the effect that the decedent’s property is now owned by the people named in the will. This order is all the authority you need to demonstrate to the world that you are now the owners of the property. Think of the order as chaining the title of your father’s assets to you. The order proves your ownership.
Once an order is entered admitting a will to probate as a muniment of title, the estate proceeding is closed. There’s nothing further to do. The order constitutes authority for third parties to treat you as the owners and deal with you, directly, rather than with an executor going through an administration.
You can take a look at Chapter 257 of the Texas Estates Code, allowing for probate as a muniment of title. Section 257.102 describes the effect of the order as I stated above.
All of the provisions dealing with estate administration are contained in Subtitles G, H and I of the Texas Estates Code. If you want to look those up, the table of contents of all the Texas statutes is here. You’ll probably not want to read too much there, but suffice it to say, among all those statutes are all the requirements of an administration – all of which are avoided if a will is admitted to probate as a muniment of title.
So, pay off the small debts so we can tell the court that there are no debts other than debts secured by real estate. Then, we can authorize the court to admit the will to probate as a muniment of title.