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Nebraska Estate Planning Basics
Pillar GuideNebraska35 min read

Nebraska Estate Planning Basics

Nebraska estate planning takes four documents: a will needing two witnesses and no notary, a power of attorney void without one, and two health care papers.

By Settled Editorial

Nebraska estate planning runs on four documents. A will decides who inherits and who serves as personal representative. A financial power of attorney covers your money while you are alive and unable to act. Health care takes two separate papers, because Nebraska never combined them. A trust is optional and sits above the other three.

Every rule below was read in the Nebraska Revised Statutes at the Nebraska Legislature, and each section was checked against the amendment chain the site prints under its own text, so a figure changed by the 2026 session shows up here rather than a stale one. Nebraska keeps this law in five places and the split matters when you go looking. Wills, intestacy, guardianship, powers of attorney, trusts and digital assets all sit in Chapter 30. The living will sits in Chapter 20. The transfer-on-death deed sits in Chapter 76. The inheritance tax sits in Chapter 77. Probate itself is heard by the county court in each of Nebraska's 93 counties.

This guide is the map. Each section states the Nebraska signing rule, names the trap that catches people who read national advice, then points at the deeper guide.

The Four Documents at a Glance

DocumentWhat it controlsWhen it worksNebraska signing rule
WillWho inherits probate property, who serves as personal representativeAfter deathWriting, signed by you, plus two witnesses to the signing or your acknowledgment (30-2327). No notary required. Handwritten wills allowed if dated (30-2328)
Financial power of attorneyYour money and property while you are aliveOn signing, or on a trigger you nameSigned and acknowledged before a notary. Not valid without the acknowledgment. No witnesses (30-4005)
Power of attorney for health careWho speaks for you on medical careOnly after a written determination that you are incapableWriting, dated, plus two qualifying adult witnesses or a notary who is not the agent (30-3404)
Declaration (living will)Whether life-sustaining treatment continuesOn the conditions 20-405 setsSigned, plus two adult witnesses or a notary (20-404)
Revocable trust (optional)Assets you actually retitle into itOn signing, and at death for funded assetsNebraska Uniform Trust Code, 30-3801 et seq.

1. A Nebraska Will

Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2327 sets one main route and it is shorter than most people expect. The will has to be in writing and signed by you, or signed in your presence and at your direction by someone else. At least two individuals then sign it, and each of them has to have witnessed either your signing or your acknowledgment of the signature or of the will.

Who may sign one carries a Nebraska wrinkle worth knowing. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2326 lets any individual who is eighteen or more years of age, or who is not a minor, and who is of sound mind make a will. That second branch is doing real work, because Nebraska sets its age of majority at nineteen rather than eighteen under Neb. Rev. Stat. 43-2101(1), and the same subsection ends a person's minority on marriage. So an eighteen-year-old Nebraskan is still legally a minor and may still write a valid will.

Two things national templates get wrong here. Nebraska asks for no notary on the will itself, so a notarized will with no witnesses fails while an unnotarized will with two witnesses stands. And the statute never says your witnesses must sign in your presence, which is a real difference from the neighboring states that do say it.

Nebraska also honors a handwritten will. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2328 upholds an instrument that does not meet 30-2327 as a holographic will, witnessed or not, when the signature, the material provisions and an indication of the date of signing are all in your handwriting. The date is the part people skip. Leave it off and the page survives only if it is your only such writing, or is consistent with every other one, or its date can be established from the contents or other evidence. That is a fact question, argued after you are gone.

Signing is worth an extra fifteen minutes. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2329 lets you make the will self-proved at the signing, through your acknowledgment plus the witnesses' affidavits before an officer authorized to administer oaths, and the section says that combination satisfies the 30-2327 signing requirement outright. You may also self-prove an already-executed will at any later date.

Now the witness question everybody asks. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2330(b) says a will is not invalid because an interested witness signed it. What it does instead is cap that person: unless at least one disinterested witness signed, an interested witness may receive only up to what they would have taken had you died with no will. Asking two neighbors rather than two beneficiaries costs nothing and closes the issue.

Start with a valid Nebraska will, and see what happens to property with no will at all in Nebraska intestate succession.

Marriage and a New Baby Do Not Revoke a Nebraska Will

Here is the single most common mistake in Nebraska. Many states revoke a will when the testator marries and then has a child. Nebraska does the opposite. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2333(h) states that no change of circumstances other than the ones described in that section and in Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2354 effects a revocation. Marriage does not. A birth does not. An adoption does not. A move does not.

Divorce is the carve-out, and it is broad. Under 30-2333(d) a divorce or annulment revokes revocable gifts to your former spouse and to that spouse's relatives, revokes powers of appointment held by them, revokes their nomination as personal representative, trustee, conservator, agent or guardian, and severs a joint tenancy with right of survivorship between the two of you into a tenancy in common.

A new spouse or a later child is protected by a different mechanism. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2320 gives a spouse who married you after the will was executed and was left out of it the same share they would have taken had you left no will. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2321 gives an afterborn or adopted child an intestate share too, unless the will shows the omission was deliberate, or you devised substantially everything to that child's other parent, or you provided for the child outside the will. Those statutes work, and they hand your estate a default rather than your plan. A rewrite after a wedding or a birth is still the right move.

Two smaller conveniences. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2332 revokes a will by a later will or by burning, tearing, canceling, obliterating or destroying it with intent to revoke, so a crossed-out photocopy in a drawer proves nothing. And Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2338 lets your will point at a separate written list disposing of tangible personal property, leaving out money, evidences of indebtedness, documents of title, securities and property used in a trade or business. The list has to be dated, in your handwriting or signed by you, and describe items and recipients with reasonable certainty. You may rewrite it any time without touching the will.

2. A Financial Power of Attorney, Durable Unless You Say Otherwise

Nebraska enacted the Nebraska Uniform Power of Attorney Act at Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-4001 through 30-4045, and two of its rules point in opposite directions from what most downloaded forms assume.

Durability first. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-4004 says a power of attorney created after January 1, 2013 under the act is durable unless it expressly provides that it is terminated by the incapacity of the principal. There are no magic words to add and no requirement that the document be titled durable. Silence produces durability. A form written for an opt-in state will call for durability language Nebraska does not need and will imply an existing document is defective.

Execution runs the other way and it is strict. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-4005 takes three sentences. You sign, or you mark the document under Neb. Rev. Stat. 64-105.02, or someone signs your name in your conscious presence at your direction. Your signature is presumed genuine once you acknowledge it before a notary. Then the sentence that decides everything: a power of attorney under the act is not valid unless it is acknowledged before a notary public or another individual authorized by law to take acknowledgments. Any page describing Nebraska notarization as recommended is wrong. The section asks for zero witnesses, so the notary is the whole ceremony.

The document works from the day you sign it unless you defer it. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-4009(1) makes a power of attorney effective on execution unless you provide that it starts on a future date, event or contingency. If you make it spring on your incapacity and name nobody to make that call, 30-4009(3) hands the determination to a licensed physician or psychologist, or to a court or appropriate governmental official, in a writing. A springing document buys privacy and costs you a delay at the worst moment.

Nebraska prints a statutory form inside the statute at Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-4041. Using it is optional, because 30-4005 alone decides validity, and the form opens by saying a document substantially in that form may be used. The form also tells you on its face that it does not authorize health care decisions. The full walkthrough is in a Nebraska power of attorney.

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3. Health Care Takes Its Own Document, Under Its Own Act

Nebraska splits medical planning across separate acts and separate instruments, and signing one and calling it finished leaves a hole.

The power of attorney for health care lives at Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-3401 through 30-3432 and is the only Nebraska document that names a decision maker for medical care. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-3404 sets five requirements: writing, identification of you and your agent and any successor, specific authority to make health care decisions if you become incapable, the date of execution, and signatures. That last piece is an either-or. Two adults witness and sign, or you sign and acknowledge before a notary public who is not your agent or successor agent.

The witness bar is far wider than most people expect, and wider than the living will's. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-3405(1)(a) disqualifies your spouse, parent, child, grandchild, sibling, presumptive heir, known devisee, attending physician, mental health treatment team member, romantic or dating partner, and your agent, plus any employee of a life or health insurance provider of yours. No more than one witness may be an administrator or employee of a health care provider caring for you. The romantic partner and treatment team bars arrived with Laws 2020, LB247, so a Nebraska form printed before 2020 will not list them.

Authority does not begin at the signing. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-3412 requires a written determination by your attending physician, and by any physician consulted about it, that you are incapable of making health care decisions, documented in your medical record. A physician you named as your agent may not make that determination. Your agent waits until that writing exists, and steps back if you recover.

The declaration, or living will, sits in a different chapter entirely, at Neb. Rev. Stat. 20-404 inside the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act. It is instruction only and names nobody. An adult of sound mind signs it, or directs another to sign, and it is witnessed by two adults or by a notary public. Its witness bar is short: no more than one witness may be an administrator or employee of a health care provider treating you, and no witness may be an employee of your life or health insurer. Those restrictions do not apply to a notary at all.

Read that pair of witness rules together, because it is the trap. The same two people can validly witness your living will and be disqualified from witnessing your health care power of attorney, since your adult child, your sibling and anyone named in your will clear the living will's short list and fail the health care act's long one. Signing both documents in one sitting with one set of witnesses is how a Nebraska health care agent gets invalidated. Read a Nebraska advance directive before you sign either one.

What Nebraska Decides If You Sign Nothing

For property, Nebraska intestacy fills the gap. For medical care, Nebraska names someone too, which is unusual and worth knowing.

The Health Care Surrogacy Act at Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-601 through 30-619 supplies a decision maker. Under Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-604(1) a surrogate may act once your primary health care provider determines you are incapable and no agent or guardian has been appointed. Subsection (2)(a) lets you designate a surrogate simply by telling your primary health care provider, with no writing, witness or notary anywhere in it. Failing that, subsection (2)(b) ranks your spouse, then an adult or emancipated-minor child, then a parent, then an adult or emancipated-minor sibling. Subsection (3) then makes a person who has shown special care and concern for you, who knows your values and who is reasonably available eligible to serve as well.

Two limits. That ladder stops at siblings, so it names nobody where a grandparent, a grandchild or a cousin is the closest person left, and subsection (3) makes a close friend eligible without slotting them into the order. And your provider may disqualify anyone on the list where there is clear and convincing evidence of an abusive relationship or that the person is not acting in your interest. A default is a fallback, not a plan. Signing the health care power of attorney is what puts your own name on the answer.

Property is the same story with a bigger number attached. Where you leave no will, Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2302 hands your surviving spouse the entire intestate estate where you leave no issue and no parent, the first one hundred fifty thousand dollars plus half the balance where you leave a parent or leave only issue you share with that spouse, and half the estate where any of your children are not also that spouse's children. That $150,000 figure moved with Laws 2026, LB838, and nearly every article on the internet still prints the old $100,000.

Naming a Guardian, for Your Children and for Yourself

Parents nominate inside the will. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2606 lets the parent of an unmarried minor appoint a guardian by will, effective when the guardian files an acceptance in the court where the will is probated, once both parents have died or the surviving parent is adjudged incapacitated. Where both parents nominated, the appointment by the parent who died later takes priority.

Nebraska then gives the child a vote, and it is a real one. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2607 lets a minor of fourteen or more years block the appointment, or end one already accepted, by filing a written objection before acceptance or within thirty days after notice of it. The objection does not stop the court from later appointing the same person in a proper proceeding, so the nomination still carries weight. It does mean a fourteen-year-old who dislikes the choice can force a hearing. Talk to older children about who you named.

For yourself, the strongest place to nominate is the power of attorney. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2627(b)(1) puts the person you nominated in a power of attorney at the very top of the priority list for appointment as your guardian, ahead of your spouse at (b)(2) and your adult children at (b)(3). The court may pass over anyone on that list where the best interest of the incapacitated person calls for it, and under (c) it takes your expressed wishes into account. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2617 adds a parallel route where a parent or spouse appoints a guardian for an already-incapacitated adult by will.

Guardianship is the outcome the other three documents exist to avoid. More on the appointment process in Nebraska guardianship.

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4. A Trust, When It Earns Its Place

Nebraska is a Uniform Trust Code state. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-3801 names the Nebraska Uniform Trust Code and runs it through 30-38,115, so national trust writing lands closer to the mark here than it does on Nebraska wills or powers of attorney.

Three provisions repay reading before you sign anything. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-3854(a) makes a trust revocable unless its terms expressly provide that it is irrevocable, then carves out an exception that catches older families: the default does not apply to a trust created under an instrument executed before January 1, 2005. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-3854(e) matters for coordination, because your agent under a power of attorney may revoke, amend or take distributions only to the extent the trust terms or the power expressly authorize it. And Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-3854(c)(2)(B) lets you revoke or amend by a signed instrument that carries an indication of its date, the same dating discipline the holographic will statute uses.

After your death the clock is short. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-3856(a) gives anyone contesting a trust that was revocable at your death the earlier of one year after the death or one hundred twenty days after the trustee sends them the trust instrument and a notice. A trustee who sends that packet early converts a one-year exposure into a four-month one.

Nebraska also has a pet trust with no dollar cap and no duration cap. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-3834 lets a trust provide for an animal alive during your lifetime, terminating on the death of the last surviving animal, and lets a court trim property that exceeds the intended use. See providing for a pet for the animal version.

One more use worth naming. Where a beneficiary receives means-tested benefits, an outright gift can cost them eligibility. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-38,111 states Nebraska's own policy of encouraging an achieving a better life experience account or a special needs trust to hold funds for an individual with disabilities without displacing government benefits. That is a conversation to have with a Nebraska attorney before you name that person in anything.

Weigh the trade-offs in whether a trust is worth it.

The House Has Its Own Route, and Nebraska Guards It Closely

Nebraska has a statutory transfer-on-death deed at Neb. Rev. Stat. 76-3401 through 76-3424, and for many families it does the job people expect a trust to do. Its formalities are stricter than any other Nebraska document on this page, and missing one of them is how these deeds fail.

Neb. Rev. Stat. 76-3409 requires your signature plus attestation in writing by two or more disinterested witnesses, with your signature and theirs made before an officer authorized to administer oaths and evidenced by that officer's certificate under seal. Witnesses and a notary, not one or the other. A beneficiary who signs as a witness is not disinterested.

Nebraska then closes the argument quickly. Neb. Rev. Stat. 76-3410(c) gives anyone ninety days after the transferor's death to bring an action to set the deed aside for failing that disinterested-witness requirement. Miss the window and the objection is gone, which cuts both ways: it protects a good deed from a late attack, and it leaves a family who spots the defect in month four with nothing to file.

Neb. Rev. Stat. 76-3410(a)(4) then sets a recording deadline most states do not have. The deed must be recorded within thirty days after being executed, before your death, in the office of the register of deeds in the county where the property sits. Sign it and leave it in a drawer for a month and you have nothing.

The section also dictates warnings the deed has to carry. The property stays subject to Nebraska inheritance tax as if you had owned it at death. The beneficiary is personally liable, up to the value received, to account for Medicaid reimbursement remaining after the estate's assets are applied, and may be liable for estate claims, statutory allowances to your spouse and children, and administration expenses. The Department of Health and Human Services may require revocation of the deed to qualify or stay qualified for Medicaid. A fourth warning applies to any deed created after September 3, 2025, added by Laws 2025, LB422: property insurance on the transferred property may expire thirty days after your death unless the beneficiary was added to the policy. Defective wording in a warning does not invalidate a recorded deed, but the substance is worth reading before you sign one.

Compare it with survivorship title and a funded trust in the mechanisms that skip probate, and see the Nebraska transfer-on-death deed for the full walkthrough.

Your Online Accounts Follow a Different Rule

Nebraska adopted the revised uniform fiduciary access to digital assets act at Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-501 through 30-518, and it puts a setting inside a website ahead of your legal documents.

Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-504(a) says that where a custodian offers an online tool letting you modify or delete your direction at all times, a direction you give through that tool overrides a contrary direction in a will, trust, power of attorney or other record. Only where you never used an online tool, or the custodian never offered one, does 30-504(b) let your documents speak. Set the legacy contact, then match it to your paperwork. The account settings win, and 30-504(c) then puts your direction ahead of a contrary term of service you never affirmatively agreed to. This is worth knowing by whoever will serve as your personal representative, and there is more in Nebraska digital assets.

Nebraska Has an Inheritance Tax, and the County Collects It

Nebraska is one of a handful of states that still taxes what a beneficiary receives, and the money goes to the county rather than the state. Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-2003 directs the tax to the treasurer of the proper county and makes heirs, legatees, devisees, personal representatives, other recipients and trustees liable until it is paid. It is a lien on the real property until paid, and property passing to your surviving spouse is not subject to that lien.

For anyone dying on or after January 1, 2023, the rates read like this. Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-2004 taxes immediate relatives at one percent of clear market value above one hundred thousand dollars per person, and that class covers parents, grandparents, siblings, children including adopted children, any lineal descendant, a person to whom you stood in the acknowledged relation of a parent for at least ten years, that person's lineal descendants, and the spouses of everyone in the group. Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-2005 taxes aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, their lineal descendants and their spouses at eleven percent above forty thousand dollars. Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-2006 taxes everyone else at fifteen percent above twenty-five thousand dollars.

Three exemptions do heavy lifting. Property passing to your surviving spouse is not taxed at all under 77-2004(3). Anything passing to a beneficiary under twenty-two years of age is not taxed, in all three classes. And the homestead allowance, exempt property and family maintenance allowance are outside the tax.

Read the dates carefully if you look at the statute yourself. Each of those three sections still prints the pre-2023 rate and exemption alongside the current one, so thirteen percent, eighteen percent, fifteen thousand dollars and ten thousand dollars are all real text in the live law and all wrong as today's answer. One figure is more dangerous than those, because it is correct twice over. Forty thousand dollars is the pre-2023 exemption for immediate relatives in 77-2004 and the current exemption for aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews in 77-2005, so picking it off the wrong section or the wrong year quietly shrinks a child's one hundred thousand dollar exemption to less than half. Nebraska inheritance tax works through the calculation. Whether the federal estate tax touches you at all is a separate and much larger threshold, covered in the federal estate tax.

Your Spouse Cannot Be Written Out

A Nebraska will can disinherit almost anyone except a surviving spouse. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2313(a) gives the surviving spouse of a person domiciled here a right of election to take an elective share in any fraction up to one-half of the augmented estate. Where the decedent was domiciled elsewhere, the law of that domicile decides.

Three allowances stack on top of whatever the spouse takes, and two of them change on January 1, 2027 under Laws 2026, LB838. The homestead allowance in Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2322 is twenty thousand dollars for a decedent dying before that date and twenty-five thousand dollars for one dying on or after it. The exempt property allowance in Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2323 is twelve thousand five hundred dollars now and seventeen thousand five hundred dollars from that date, taken in household furniture, automobiles, furnishings, appliances and personal effects above any security interest. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2324 adds a reasonable family allowance in money during administration, capped at one year where the estate cannot cover allowed claims. All three sit ahead of general creditors and are not charged against the spouse's share unless the will says so.

One default belongs here too. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2304 treats anyone who fails to survive you by one hundred twenty hours as having predeceased you for homestead allowance, exempt property and intestate succession. Simultaneous-death language in your documents can change that, and it should be a deliberate choice. More on the spouse's position in surviving spouse rights.

Signing Electronically: One Answer for the Will, Another for the Rest

The will has a clear answer and it is no. Neb. Rev. Stat. 86-630(2)(a) withholds the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act from any transaction to the extent it is governed by a law on the creation and execution of wills, codicils or testamentary trusts. Nebraska has enacted no electronic wills act to fill that space, so an electronically signed Nebraska will has no statutory footing. Paper, ink, two witnesses.

Remote notarization exists here and reaches the other documents. The Online Notary Public Act at Neb. Rev. Stat. 64-401 through 64-420 lets a registered online notary perform acknowledgments, jurats, verifications and oaths under Neb. Rev. Stat. 64-408. Neb. Rev. Stat. 64-418(2) then says an online notarial act satisfies any Nebraska requirement that a principal appear before or be in the physical presence of a notary, with the same carve-out for wills, codicils and testamentary trusts. So the acknowledgment your financial power of attorney needs under 30-4005 can be done over video with a Nebraska online notary. Your will cannot borrow that route, because a notary was never part of its execution rule to begin with.

When to Talk With a Nebraska Attorney

Most of this set is straightforward. A few situations are worth an hour of legal time before you sign.

  • You own farm ground or a family operation. Land, entity interests and a transfer-on-death deed's thirty-day recording window interact in ways a form cannot handle.
  • You have children from an earlier relationship. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2302(4) cuts an intestate spouse's share to one-half where any child is not also that spouse's child, and a will drafted without that in mind can produce a result nobody intended.
  • A beneficiary receives means-tested benefits. A special needs trust or an ABLE account under Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-38,111 needs drafting, not a template.
  • Medicaid eligibility is anywhere in the picture. The transfer-on-death deed carries a revocation demand and a personal accounting duty for the beneficiary under 76-3410(b).
  • Your beneficiaries are nieces, nephews or friends. The eleven and fifteen percent inheritance tax brackets are large enough to change how you title assets.

Frequently Asked Questions

What documents does a Nebraska estate plan need?

Four, and the fourth is optional. A will under Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2327 decides who inherits your probate property and who serves as personal representative. A financial power of attorney under the Nebraska Uniform Power of Attorney Act, Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-4001 through 30-4045, covers your money while you are alive and unable to act. Health care takes two papers rather than one: a power of attorney for health care at Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-3404 and a declaration under the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act at Neb. Rev. Stat. 20-404. A revocable trust under the Nebraska Uniform Trust Code sits on top of those when your situation calls for it. Parents add a guardian nomination inside the will under Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2606.

How many witnesses does a Nebraska will need?

Two, and no notary. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2327 asks for a writing signed by you, or signed in your presence and at your direction, plus at least two individuals who each witnessed either your signing or your acknowledgment of the signature or of the will. Nebraska does not require those two to sign in your presence, and it does not offer a notary-only route. A notary comes in only through the optional self-proving affidavit at Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2329, which any officer authorized to administer oaths may take, at the signing or at any time afterward, and which spares your witnesses a trip to court later.

Is a handwritten will valid in Nebraska?

Yes, and the trap is the date. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2328 upholds an unwitnessed holographic will when the signature, the material provisions and an indication of the date of signing are all in your own handwriting. Miss the date and the document survives only if it is your only such instrument, or is consistent with every other one, or the date can be worked out from the contents or from other evidence. That turns a private page into a fact question your family has to litigate, so a dated, witnessed will is the safer route by a wide margin.

Does a Nebraska power of attorney have to be notarized?

Yes, for validity. The third sentence of Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-4005 says a power of attorney under the Nebraska Uniform Power of Attorney Act is not valid unless it is acknowledged before a notary public or another individual authorized by law to take acknowledgments. Witnesses are not part of the rule and the section asks for none, so the notary carries the whole execution burden. Durability runs the other way from the notary rule: Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-4004 makes a document created after January 1, 2013 durable unless it expressly says incapacity ends it.

Does getting married revoke my Nebraska will?

No, and this is where national advice misleads Nebraskans. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2333(h) says no change of circumstances other than the ones that section and Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2354 describe effects a revocation, so marriage, a new baby and a move to another state all leave your will standing. Divorce is the exception and revokes the gifts, powers and fiduciary nominations that favor your former spouse and that spouse's relatives. A new husband or wife left out of an old will falls back on Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2320 and takes an intestate share instead.

Who makes my medical decisions in Nebraska if I sign nothing?

Nebraska names someone for you, which many states do not. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-604 lets a surrogate decide once your primary health care provider determines you are incapable and no agent or guardian is in place. You may designate that surrogate by personally telling your provider, with no writing at all. Otherwise the priority runs spouse, then adult child, then parent, then adult sibling, and subsection (3) makes a person who has shown special care and concern and who knows your values eligible as well. A default is not the same as a choice, so signing a power of attorney for health care still beats relying on it.

Do I need a living trust in Nebraska?

Usually no, and a trust never replaces the other three documents. Nebraska adopted the Nebraska Uniform Trust Code at Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-3801, so national trust writing generally describes rules Nebraska does have. Under Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-3854(a) a trust is revocable unless its terms expressly say otherwise, with one carve-out worth knowing: that default does not reach a trust created under an instrument executed before January 1, 2005. A trust controls only what you retitle into it, so funding is the work, and Nebraska already offers a recorded transfer-on-death deed for the house.

Does a Nebraska transfer-on-death deed avoid the inheritance tax?

No, and the deed says so on its own face. Neb. Rev. Stat. 76-3410(b) requires the warning that the property transferred remains subject to inheritance taxation in Nebraska to the same extent as if the transferor owned it at death. The same block warns that the beneficiary is personally liable, up to the value received, to account for Medicaid reimbursement and for estate claims and family allowances. The deed skips probate. Nebraska inheritance tax is a separate bill, paid to the treasurer of the proper county under Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-2003.

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Information current as of September 10, 2026

Settled Estate is not a law firm, and this content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Probate laws and procedures in Nebraska can change. Consult with a qualified attorney for advice specific to your situation. Full disclaimer.

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