Description of West Virginia's New Probate System

The 1982 revisions to the West Virginia Probate System usher in a new era in estate administration.Surprising even long time advocates of change, the state legislature has created an entirely new system for settling estates.This new system addresses most of the time-consuming and outdated procedures that have plagued fiduciaries for decades.Among the new system's most important features is the summary settlement provision.With the advent of this provision, it is now possible to settle uncontested estates summarily, even when substantial sums are involved.This feature will likely reduce the costs of probate significantly and insure that beneficiaries need visit no bread-lines while waiting for administration to be completed.Despite the obvious benefits of the new approach, the legislature made the system optional.Counties are given the choice of accepting the new system or voting to retain a revised version of the old system.To date, only five of the fifty-five counties have made the choice to accept the new approach to probate administration.The net effect of the "choice" approach is that West Virginia now has a dual system of estate settlement.Counties which adjoin each other can possibly have distinctly different systems of estate settlement.Whether the legislature acted wisely when it gave counties a choice to maintain the old system is not the focus of this article.That judgment must wait until the actual operation of the dual system has been observed.This article will be concerned with the changes wrought by the 1982 Act.The article will proceed on three fronts.First, a detailed description of the new system of estate administration will be provided.Second, an attempt will be made both to identify the problem areas in the new system and to predict what approaches will be taken to rectify these problem spots.Finally, all major amendments to the old system will be explained. II. THE NEW SYsTEM: How IT WORKSThe authors of this new system claim inspiration from the Uniform Probate Code and some Louisiana acts, but they also assure us that they are ultimately responsible for the finished product.' A. Counties Under the New SystemAs previously mentioned, the legislature gave counties the option of choos-1 Senator Boettner explained that the sponsors of the bill felt that West Virginia's probate code should address conditions in West Virginia, rather than elsewhere.He said the part of the new system he was proudest of was the introduction of the office of fiduciary supervisor.It is the Senator's hope that the creation of this office will save much time and red tape in estate administration.Phone conversation with Senator Boettner; May, 1982.