A power of attorney is a document you sign yourself, while you can still make your own decisions, naming someone to act for you. A conservatorship is a court case that someone else files after you can no longer decide for yourself, and a judge picks who will make decisions for you. If a valid power of attorney is already in place, a conservatorship may never be needed. What a power of attorney is A power of attorney lets you (the "principal") name an agent (the "attorney in f

A Tennessee executor asks the probate court for authority, gathers and lists the estate's property, notifies creditors, pays valid claims, keeps records for the court, and distributes what is left under the will. Several of those steps have firm deadlines: 60 days for the inventory, a creditor notice within 30 days of your letters, and a first accounting or status report within 15 months (Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 30-2-301, 30-2-306, 30-2-601). Here is the process in order. 1. Petit

If you die without a will in Tennessee, state law decides who gets your probate property. A surviving spouse gets everything if you have no children or other descendants, and shares with your descendants if you do. The court, not you, picks the person who runs the estate, starting with your spouse (Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 31-2-104, 30-1-106). This is called dying "intestate." Here is how it works. What the intestate rules cover The intestate rules only reach your probate estate: p

Maybe not. In Tennessee, only property that was in the person's name alone, with no co-owner and no named beneficiary, has to go through probate. If that probate property is worth $50,000 or less and there is no real estate involved, a shorter "small estate" process may be available instead of full probate (Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 30-4-102, 30-4-103). Here is how to sort out what you are dealing with. Step 1: Separate probate property from everything else Probate is the court proc