Do you know what an Oklahoma estate is?

You would be correct if you pointed to Investopedia’s definition of an estate:

An estate is everything comprising the net worth of an individual, including all land and real estate, possessions, financial securities, cash, and other assets that the individual owns or has a controlling interest in.

Each person has an estate during their life and following their death.  The difference between a person’s estate during life and death is that after death the estate technically becomes a separate legal entity.  Consider the Internal Revenue Service’s definition of an estate:

  • An estate (or decedent estate) is a legal entity created as a result of
    a person’s death.
  • The estate consists of the real and/or personal property of the deceased person.
  • The estate pays any debts owed by the decedent and distributes the
    balance of the estate’s assets to the beneficiaries of the estate.
  • An estate arises on a person’s death whether the person died with or without a will.

It is also worth pointing out that since you have an “estate” you need to make an “estate plan”, a topic that is discussed several places on this Blog: Here, Here and Here to mention a few.

 

Posted by Shawn Roberts

On this blog, I write about and try to answer practical Oklahoma legal questions. My focus and most experience is in estate planning and business issues including Oklahoma non-compete law. I make a living as an attorney in the law firm I founded, Shawn J. Roberts, P.C. in Oklahoma City. I live in Edmond with my wife Amy and my two children, Sam (19) and David (11). We live precisely in the path of where the "wind comes sweeping down the plains."