Oklahoma probate: Deliver the Will or be responsible for damages

Have you ever wondered what happens if someone dies and you are the person who is keeping their Last Will and Testament for them?

If not, consider this material.

An Oklahoma law that many people may not be aware can have a big impact on a person who holds an Oklahoma Last Will and Testament after the person who made it dies.

Title 58 of the Oklahoma Statutes, Section 21 provides that within 30 days of the date the holder of a Last Will and Testament finds out the person who made the Will has died, the holder has to either (a) deliver the Will to the District Court in the county in which the person who died lived or (b) deliver the Will to the person named as executor in the Will.

If you are the holder of the Will and you do not do this, it makes you “responsible for all damages sustained by any one injured thereby.”

This law applies whether or not you believe there needs to be an Oklahoma probate.

Don’t forget to deliver!

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."