Pending Legislation: Are Electronic Wills in Your Future?

This is part of a series of blog posts about legislation pending in Texas.

Are you ready for electronic powers of attorney?  How about electronic wills?  SB 1779, sponsored by Sen. Tan Parker of Flower Mound, would enact the Uniform Electronic Estate Planning Documents Act (UEEPDA) in Texas.  The bill includes an add-on (the Uniform Electronic Wills Act) which would permit electronic wills.  It is pending in the Senate Jurisprudence Committee.

UEEPDA was adopted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) in 2022 and is pending in three other states as well.  The Uniform Electronic Wills Act was promulgated by NCCUSL in 2019 and has been enacted in five states.

UEEPDA is a standalone act which can be adopted without the electronic wills act.  Sen. Parker opted to include both uniform acts in his bill.  One of the most controversial provisions of the acts would permit remote witnessing of estate planning documents – there would have to be video contact between the principal and the witnesses, but the witnesses would not have to be in the physical presence of the principal.  That’s a bridge too far for some states, which allow electronic documents but require witnesses to be in the physical presence of the principal.

The Texas Real Estate and Probate Institute (T-REP) does not support the bill, but it has a version which Texanizes the uniform acts.  For example, it doesn’t provide for an entirely new self-proving affidavit for electronic wills; rather, it refers to the form and statutes already a part of Texas law.  T-REP also wishes to require witnesses to be in the physical presence of the principal.

At this point in the session, it is impossible to predict SB 1779’s likelihood of passage.