How to Avoid Probate in Nebraska

In Nebraska, an asset skips probate when a recorded deed, a certificate of title, or a beneficiary contract already names the person who takes it. That covers real estate under a recorded transfer-on-death deed, a vehicle or motorboat titled in TOD form, payable-on-death bank accounts, securities registered in beneficiary form, life insurance and retirement money with a living beneficiary named, and anything already retitled into a living trust.

Everything else goes to the county court. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-2410(a) puts the first informal or formal proceeding in the county where the decedent was domiciled at death, and for a decedent domiciled outside Nebraska, in any county where the decedent's property sat at death. Find yours in the Nebraska county courts by county directory.

One warning belongs at the top of this page rather than the bottom, because it is the fact that makes Nebraska different from almost every state a national article describes. Avoiding probate does not avoid Nebraska inheritance tax. The state writes that sentence into the transfer-on-death deed itself. Section 76-3410(b)(1) requires every such deed to carry the warning that the property transferred remains subject to inheritance taxation in Nebraska to the same extent as if owned by the transferor at death. Plan around that, not against it.

Use this page as a planning map. Each tool below names the Nebraska section that creates it, the step that makes it work, and the catch that national pages leave out. If someone has already died and you are settling the estate now, start with the Nebraska probate guide instead.

Start With What Nebraska Probate Actually Costs

National pages sell a living trust as the escape from a ruinous court bill. Nebraska does not print that bill.

Neb. Rev. Stat. § 33-125(1)(a)(i) sets the county court fee for a probate commenced and closed informally at $22.00. That is the statute's fee, not the counter price. Section 24-703(3)(a) adds a charge equal to ten percent of each fee provided by §§ 33-125, 33-126.02, 33-126.03 and 33-126.06, rounded to the nearest even dollar. Those last five words do the work on this bracket: ten percent of $22.00 is $2.20, and the rounding is why the counter collects $2.00. Six per-case court costs then ride on every county court case and add $20.00: legal services $6.25 under § 33-107.01, automation $8.00 under § 33-107.03, education $1.00 under § 33-154, dispute resolution $0.75 under § 33-155, indigent defense $3.00 under § 33-156, and uniform data analysis $1.00 under § 47-633. The Nebraska Judicial Branch fee schedule effective July 1, 2026 prints the sum: $44.00 to open an informal probate, or $45.00 where there is a will and the court issues the § 33-126.05 certificate of probate of will. Quote the $22 alone and you understate the bill by half.

A formal probate is graduated on estate value across twenty brackets in § 33-125(1)(b), from $22 where the value does not exceed $1,000 up to $1,500 where it exceeds $5 million. Section 33-125(2) measures gross value as the real and personal property in Nebraska at the time of death, less liens and joint tenancy property. With the ten percent charge and the $20.00 of costs added, a formal probate collects between $44.00 and $1,670.00.

Then there is the tax proceeding that no amount of planning removes. Section 33-126.03 charges the county court $22.00 for determining inheritance tax, payable by the person petitioning, and waives it only where a formal § 33-125(1)(b) fee was already charged. The schedule shows the same loading on that fee: a standalone determination of inheritance tax collects $44.00 at the counter, which is what a family that avoided probate entirely still pays to close the tax question.

Recording is the cheap side of the ledger and it is statewide. Section 33-109(1) charges the register of deeds, or the county clerk where the two offices have been consolidated, $10.00 for the first page of a deed and $6.00 for each additional page, with certified copies at $1.50 per page.

So avoiding probate in Nebraska buys time, privacy, and a simpler handoff. It does not buy a rescue from a crushing filing fee, because the filing fee was never crushing. Plan with that in mind and the choices below get easier to make.

The Transfer-On-Death Deed, and the Three Catches Nebraska Adds

Nebraska adopted the Nebraska Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act in 2012, and § 76-3401 gives it that name across §§ 76-3401 to 76-3424. Section 76-3405 lets an individual transfer property to one or more beneficiaries effective at the transferor's death by a transfer on death deed, and § 76-3406 makes the deed revocable even if the deed or another instrument says otherwise.

Three Nebraska requirements catch people who read a national page first.

• Two disinterested witnesses, not just a notary. Section 76-3409 requires the deed to be signed by the transferor and attested in writing by two or more disinterested witnesses, whose signatures along with the transferor's are made before an officer authorized to administer oaths and evidenced by that officer's certificate under official seal. The section prints the sworn wording it wants for the transferor, for the witnesses, and for the officer.
• Thirty days to record. Section 76-3410(a)(4) requires recording within thirty days after execution, before the transferor's death, and in the register of deeds office for the county where the property sits. Most transfer-on-death states require only the second. A deed signed and recorded four months later fails with the owner still alive.
• The warnings are part of the deed. Section 76-3410(a)(3) requires the deed to contain the warnings set out in § 76-3410(b), alongside the recordable-deed formalities (a)(1) asks for. Section 76-3410(b)(3) then saves a recorded deed from being invalidated because of defects in the wording of those warnings, so a clumsy paraphrase is survivable and a missing warning is a drafting failure worth avoiding.

Here is what the rest of the act asks of you and gives you.

• You stay the owner. Section 76-3414 says that during the transferor's life the deed does not affect any right of the transferor or another owner, including the right to transfer or encumber the property, creates no legal or equitable interest for the beneficiary, and does not expose the property to the beneficiary's creditors.
• The beneficiary never has to know. Section 76-3411 makes the deed effective without notice, delivery, acceptance, or consideration.
• Title vests only if the beneficiary outlives you by 120 hours. Section 76-3415(a)(2) makes the beneficiary's interest contingent on surviving the transferor by one hundred twenty hours unless the deed sets a different survival period, and treats a beneficiary who fails that test as having predeceased.
• Two or more beneficiaries take equal shares, and a failed share moves sideways. Section 76-3415(a)(3) transfers concurrent interests in equal and undivided shares with no right of survivorship between the beneficiaries, so once they own it, one dying later does not feed the others. Section 76-3415(a)(4) handles the shares that fail at the transferor's death instead, redirecting a failed share to the remaining named beneficiaries in proportion to their interests.
• The debt travels with the land. Section 76-3415(b) passes the property subject to every conveyance, encumbrance, assignment, contract, mortgage, lien, and other interest it was subject to at the transferor's death. A transfer-on-death deed moves the house and the mortgage together.
• A joint owner's deed only fires if that owner outlives the others. Section 76-3415(c)(1) gives the property to the surviving joint owners with right of survivorship where the transferor dies first, and (c)(2) makes the transfer on death deed effective only where the transferor was the last surviving joint owner. A deed signed by one spouse alone waits its turn.
• Revoke or change it on paper, recorded. Section 76-3413(a)(1) accepts four instruments and nothing else: a later transfer on death deed, an instrument of revocation executed with § 76-3409 formalities, an inter vivos deed, or an inter vivos deed to a bona fide purchaser. Every one of them has to be acknowledged after the deed it revokes. Section 76-3413(a)(2) then splits the recording deadline: the first three must reach the register of deeds before the transferor dies, while the deed to a bona fide purchaser has until the later of thirty days after execution or the transferor's death. Section 76-3413(c) is blunt about the alternative: after recording, the deed may not be revoked by a revocatory act on the deed.
• A divorce undoes it. Section 76-3415(e) revokes any disposition made by the deed where the transferor is later divorced, as provided in § 30-2333.
• Someone files a statement at death. Section 76-3412 requires a completed statement under § 76-214(2)(a) when the conveyance becomes effective on the transferor's death or on the death of a surviving joint tenant.
• Ninety days to attack the witnesses. Section 76-3410(c) bars any action to set the deed aside for failure to comply with the disinterested-witness rule more than ninety days after the transferor's death, or the death of the last surviving transferor.

One rule is new and most Nebraska explanations predate it. Laws 2025, LB422 added a fourth required warning for any transfer on death deed created after September 3, 2025: property insurance on the transferred property may expire thirty days after the transferor's death. Section 76-3424 then makes the designated beneficiary a deemed insured under the policy from the transferor's death until the earliest of the end of the policy period figured as if the transferor were living, the date the beneficiary gets other coverage, or thirty days after the death where the extra premium is paid. That is a very short bridge for an empty house on a gravel road in February. Line up the beneficiary's own coverage before it is needed.

Execution, recording and the deed's own form are worked through on a Nebraska transfer-on-death deed. Recording the instrument is a register of deeds errand, walked through on the Nebraska property transfer guide.

Where Nebraska Pulls a Transfer-On-Death Deed Back

No tool on this page is absolute, and Nebraska writes the exceptions into the act itself.

Creditors and the family's allowances reach the beneficiary personally. Section 76-3417(a) makes the transfer subject the beneficiary to personal liability where other estate assets cannot pay claims against the estate, statutory allowances to the surviving spouse and children, and the expenses of administration. Subsection (b)(1) makes the beneficiary liable to account to the personal representative for a proportionate share of the fair market value of the equity received, measured at the date of death. Subsection (b)(2) puts two limits on it that are worth knowing: the personal representative cannot start that proceeding without a written demand from the surviving spouse, a creditor, a child, or someone acting for a child, and the proceeding must be commenced within one year of the death.

Medicaid reaches it too. Section 76-3418 makes the beneficiary personally liable to account for medicaid reimbursement under §§ 68-919 and 76-3417, capped at the value of the interest transferred, and applies that right to assistance provided before, at the same time as, or after the deed was signed and recorded. Section 76-3421 lets the Department of Health and Human Services require revocation of the deed by the transferor, the spouse, or both, in order to qualify or stay qualified for medicaid. Anyone who has received or may need Nebraska long-term care assistance should talk with a Nebraska elder law attorney before recording anything.

A buyer from the beneficiary is protected, except against the tax. Section 76-3420(a) gives a purchaser or lender for value from a transfer-on-death beneficiary title free of claims by the estate, the personal representative, the surviving spouse, creditors, and anyone else claiming through the transferor, with no duty to inquire whether the conveyance was proper. Subsection (b) carves out exactly one thing: that purchaser or lender does not take title free of the lien for inheritance tax under § 77-2003. Section 77-2003 makes the tax a lien on the real property subject to it until paid or terminated under § 77-2037, with property passing to a surviving spouse exempt from the lien. Section 77-2037 ends the lien ten years after the death where no determination was made, five years after a determination that was made inside that window, on payment, or on a release under § 77-2039.

Joint Ownership Is Not a Plan

Two names on a Nebraska deed can carry survivorship, and the deed's own words decide it. Read the recorded instrument before you treat any co-owned Nebraska property as automatic. Section 76-275.07 settles one drafting question outright: where a conveyance of a present interest in real estate names more than one grantee in the disjunctive, the conveyance is conclusively presumed to create a cotenancy in all of them.

Section 76-2,109 protects an existing joint tenancy from accidental destruction. Where all the joint tenants sign an instrument about the property, there is no severance unless the intention to sever expressly appears in that instrument.

Joint tenancy costs nothing to create and carries three prices in Nebraska. It hands a living co-owner present ownership today. A divorce severs it under § 30-2333(d)(2), turning survivorship into equal tenancies in common, and § 30-2333(e) leaves a good faith purchaser protected until a writing declaring that severance is recorded. And the inheritance tax follows it: § 77-2002(1)(d) taxes property held by the decedent and another in joint names, except the part the survivor can show originally belonged to them and was never received from the decedent for less than full consideration. Adding an adult child to the deed is a taxable event waiting for a death certificate.

Payable-On-Death Accounts

A payable-on-death form names who receives an account balance at death, and Nebraska treats it as nontestamentary by statute. Section 30-2715(a) lists the instruments that carry a valid nonprobate transfer on death, including an account with POD designation as defined in § 30-2716, an insurance or annuity policy, a bond, a promissory note, a security registered in beneficiary form, a pension or profit-sharing plan, an individual retirement plan, a trust, and a certificate of title.

Section 30-2723(b)(2)(A) does the work at death. On the death of the sole party, or the last survivor of two or more parties, the sums on deposit belong to the surviving beneficiaries in the proportions the POD designation states, or in equal and undivided shares where it states none. Where no beneficiary survives, the money belongs to the estate of the last surviving party, which is how a POD account lands in probate anyway. Name a backup.

Two limits are worth reading before you rely on the form.

• A tenancy-in-common account cannot carry a POD designation. Section 30-2723(c) makes a POD designation in a multiple-party account without right of survivorship ineffective, and treats an account designated as a tenancy in common as being without right of survivorship.
• Creditors and the family's allowances still reach it. Section 30-2726(a) makes the transfer ineffective against the estate to the extent needed to pay claims, statutory allowances to the surviving spouse and children, taxes, and expenses of administration where other estate assets fall short. Subsection (b) makes the beneficiary liable to account, again only on a written demand and only within one year of the death.

Adding a payable-on-death form to a solely owned account is free and takes a few minutes at the counter. It is the cheapest single step on this page.

Securities Registered in Beneficiary Form

Nebraska allows transfer-on-death registration of securities at §§ 30-2734 to 30-2745, and it puts a gate in front of the registration. Section 30-2735 lets only two ownership shapes register in beneficiary form: sole ownership by one individual, or multiple ownership by two or more with right of survivorship, rather than as tenants in common. Multiple owners of a security registered in beneficiary form hold as joint tenants with right of survivorship, as tenants by the entireties, or as owners of community property held in survivorship form.

Section 30-2740 passes ownership on the death of the sole owner, or the last to die of multiple owners, to the beneficiaries who survive all owners, and lets the registering entity reregister the security on proof of death. Where no beneficiary survives, the security belongs to the estate of the deceased sole owner or of the last owner to die.

Section 30-2743 mirrors the account rule. Where other estate assets are insufficient, the transfer is not effective against the estate to the extent needed to pay claims, statutory allowances, taxes, and expenses of administration, and the surviving owner or beneficiary is liable to account within one year of the death.

Vehicles and Motorboats

Nebraska's vehicle transfer-on-death statute sits in the probate code rather than the Motor Vehicle Certificate of Title Act, which is where most people look for it and do not find it.

Section 30-2715.01(1) lets the owner of a vehicle or motorboat include a designation of beneficiary in the certificate of title, in substance the owner's name followed by transfer on death to the named beneficiary, with TOD available as the abbreviation. A trust may be the beneficiary. The transfer is subject to the rights of all lienholders, whether the lien was created before, at the same time as, or after the transfer-on-death interest. Subsection (2) gives the beneficiary no interest until the owner, or the last surviving joint tenant with right of survivorship, dies, and lets the owner change the designation at any time by filing an application for a subsequent certificate of title, without the beneficiary's consent. Subsection (3) vests ownership in the beneficiary at that death, again subject to the lienholders.

Counter steps and forms sit on Nebraska vehicle title transfers.

Retirement Accounts and Life Insurance

A 401(k), IRA, pension, annuity or life insurance policy pays whoever is named on the form the plan or insurer holds. Section 30-2715(a) makes that provision nontestamentary, and § 30-2715(b) adds that the section does not limit the rights of creditors under other Nebraska laws.

Two Nebraska tax details separate this category from the rest of the page. Section 77-2001 makes life insurance receivable by the executor or administrator taxable to the extent of the amount the estate receives, which is a reason to keep a living person named on the policy rather than the estate. Section 77-2002(3) exempts life insurance proceeds receivable by the trustee of an inter vivos or testamentary trust, unless the decedent's estate is the beneficiary of that trust. Section 77-2007 exempts employee benefit plan payments to the extent the benefit is life insurance already excluded under § 77-2001 or is not subject to federal estate taxation under section 2039 of the Internal Revenue Code.

This is where Nebraska probate happens by accident. A blank form, a form signed before a divorce, or a beneficiary who died first drops the money into the estate and into county court. Pull every form once a year and read the name on it. Online accounts run on their own Nebraska statute and their own provider terms, covered on Nebraska digital assets after death.

The Revocable Living Trust

Nebraska trust law sits in the Nebraska Uniform Trust Code, which § 30-3801 names and applies across §§ 30-3801 to 30-38,115.

Section 30-3854(a) makes a Nebraska trust revocable by the settlor unless the terms expressly provide that it is irrevocable, which is the friendly default. Read the second sentence before relying on it: that subsection does not apply to a trust created under an instrument executed before January 1, 2005, so an older Nebraska trust is read under the law that governed it when it was signed.

Section 30-3854(c) sets out how revocation happens, and it runs opposite to the deed rule above. Where the trust itself provides a method, substantial compliance with that method works. Where the trust names no method, or names one that is not expressly exclusive, the settlor may revoke or amend by a later will or codicil that expressly refers to the trust or specifically devises property that would otherwise pass under it, or by a signed instrument evidencing that intent. A Nebraska will can reach a Nebraska trust. A Nebraska will cannot touch a recorded Nebraska transfer-on-death deed.

Two more subsections decide whether the plan survives contact with real life. Section 30-3854(e) lets an agent under a power of attorney exercise the settlor's powers to revoke, amend, or distribute trust property only to the extent expressly authorized by the trust terms or the power itself, so that authority has to be written down in advance. See a Nebraska power of attorney for the drafting side. Section 30-3854(f) lets a conservator, or a guardian where no conservator was appointed, exercise those powers only with the approval of the supervising court.

A trust is not a creditor shield in Nebraska while you live or after you die. Section 30-3850(a)(1) makes the property of a revocable trust subject to the settlor's creditors during the settlor's lifetime. Section 30-3850(a)(3) then makes the property of a trust that was revocable at death subject to the settlor's creditors, the costs of administering the settlor's estate, funeral and disposal expenses, and statutory allowances to a surviving spouse and children, to the extent the probate estate cannot cover them, on the same written-demand requirement and the same one-year clock. Section 30-3850(a)(5) releases a trustee who distributed before receiving written notice from the personal representative that the probate estate is short.

Setup and funding are on a Nebraska revocable living trust.

The Two Affidavits That Open No Court Case

Nebraska has two small-estate affidavits with separate $100,000 caps. They are concurrent routes on different property, not two tiers of one route, and a family can use both.

Personal property, § 30-24,125. Thirty days after the death, anyone holding the decedent's tangible personal property, or owing the decedent a debt, must pay or deliver it to a claiming successor on an affidavit stating that the value of all personal property in the estate, wherever located, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed $100,000, that thirty days have passed as shown by a certified death certificate or an abstract of death, the successor's relationship, that no application or petition to appoint a personal representative is pending or granted anywhere, and that the successor is entitled to the property. Subsection (b) makes a transfer agent change the registered ownership of a security on the same affidavit, and subsection (c) lets the successor deposit a check payable to the decedent. Subsection (d) adds one step for a titled vehicle, motorboat, all-terrain vehicle, utility-type vehicle or minibike: the Department of Motor Vehicles needs its own affidavit before it will issue a new certificate of title.

Real property, § 30-24,129. Thirty days after the death, a successor may file an affidavit with the register of deeds of the county where the land sits, stating that the decedent's interest in all Nebraska real property does not exceed $100,000, valued from the assessment rolls for the year the decedent died less real estate taxes and interest due at death. Read that valuation rule twice, because it is not market value and it is the reason this route reaches further than families expect. The affidavit must also say that no personal representative has been appointed or applied for in Nebraska, that the successor takes by homestead allowance, exempt property allowance or family allowance, by intestate succession, or by devise under a will attached to the affidavit, that the successor searched for a later will and found none, and that no one else has a right to the interest. Where the decedent owned land in more than one county, subsection (b) requires the recorded affidavit and the death certificate to be recorded in each of them.

Both routes are compared, with the third summary procedure that has no dollar figure at all, on the Nebraska small estate routes.

A Nebraska Divorce Rewrites the Paperwork

Section 30-2333 is the most under-read section on this page, because it reaches past the beneficiary forms and into the deed.

Section 30-2333(a)(6) defines a governing instrument to include a deed, a will, a trust, an insurance or annuity policy, an account with POD designation, a security registered in beneficiary form, a transfer on death deed, a pension or retirement plan, and an instrument creating a power of appointment or a power of attorney. Section 30-2333(d)(1) then revokes, on divorce or annulment, any revocable disposition or appointment to the former spouse or to a relative of the former spouse, any power of appointment conferred on either, and any nomination of either as personal representative, trustee, conservator, agent, or guardian. Subsection (d)(2) severs joint tenancy with right of survivorship between the former spouses into equal tenancies in common.

Three limits decide whether that automatic rule protects anyone.

• Record the severance. Section 30-2333(e) leaves a third party who acquired property for value and in good faith reliance on apparent survivorship title untouched, unless a writing declaring the severance was noted, registered, filed, or recorded in the records appropriate to that kind of property.
• Update the form anyway. Section 30-2333(i)(1)(A) protects a payor who paid the named beneficiary in good faith before receiving written notice or gaining knowledge of the divorce, and subsection (i)(2) requires that notice to be mailed to the payor's main office or home, personally delivered, or delivered by other means establishing knowledge.
• Remarriage revives it. Section 30-2333(g) revives provisions revoked solely by that section where the divorced individual remarries the former spouse or the divorce is nullified. Section 30-2333(h) adds that no change of circumstances other than the ones named in §§ 30-2333 and 30-2354 revokes anything, so a new marriage, a new child, or a falling out changes none of your forms by itself.

Avoiding Probate Does Not Avoid the Nebraska Inheritance Tax

Nebraska is one of a handful of states with an inheritance tax, and the county collects it. Section 77-2003 makes the tax payable to the treasurer of the proper county and makes heirs, legatees, devisees, personal representatives, other recipients of taxable property, and trustees liable for it until it is paid.

The rate depends on who inherits, and every figure below applies to decedents dying on or after January 1, 2023. Each of the three sections also prints the older pre-2023 figure in the same subsection, so a number pulled out of these sections without its date qualifier is likely to be the wrong one.

Section 77-2004(3) exempts three things outright: any interest passing to the surviving spouse, by will, by the transfers described in § 77-2002, or in any other manner; any interest passing to a person in that first class who is under twenty-two years of age; and the homestead allowance, exempt property, and family maintenance allowance. Section 77-2005(2) carries the same under-22 exemption for the remote-relative class, and § 77-2006(2) carries it for everyone else, so a young beneficiary pays nothing whichever column they fall in.

Now the part that undoes a plan built only around the word probate. Section 77-2002(1) taxes any interest in property transferred by deed, grant, sale, or gift, in trust or otherwise, that was made in contemplation of death, intended to take effect in possession or enjoyment after the owner's death, or by reason of which any person becomes beneficially entitled to property at the death, and subsection (1)(d) reaches property held in joint names. Subsection (2) deems a transfer made within three years of death, for which a federal gift tax return was required, to have been made in contemplation of death. A transfer-on-death deed, a POD account and a funded revocable trust all sit squarely inside that language, which is why § 76-3410(b)(1) makes the deed say so on its face.

Two clocks follow. Section 77-2010 makes the tax due twelve months after the death, with interest on unpaid tax and a penalty of five percent per month, capped at twenty-five percent, for failing to file an appropriate proceeding for determination inside that year. Section 77-2018.02(1) then allows an independent county court proceeding for the sole purpose of determining the tax where no probate was opened in Nebraska at all, filed in the county where the taxable property sits, with published notice and personal service on the county attorney of every county holding the property. Section 77-2018.02(4) offers relief where the petition shows no tax could result, and subsection (5) lets the court skip notice where the county attorney waives and the taxpayers appear or someone agrees to pay. Subsection (6) requires notice to the Department of Health and Human Services with the decedent's social security number where the decedent was fifty-five or older or lived in a medical institution, and a notice that does not conform to the department's published manner is void.

Read the whole picture on the Nebraska inheritance tax page before you decide which tool to use.

What Does Not Avoid Probate

Three beliefs cost Nebraska families the most.

A will. A will routes an estate into county court rather than around it. Section 30-2402 says that, except through the two affidavits at §§ 30-24,125 and 30-24,129, a will must be declared valid by an order of informal probate by the registrar or an adjudication by the court to be effective to prove the transfer of any property or to nominate an executor. The same section leaves one narrow door open: an unprobated but duly executed and unrevoked will may be admitted as evidence of a devise where no court proceeding about the estate ever happened and either the devisee held the property under the will or nobody claimed it through the decedent's title during the testacy period. Section 30-2408 then sets a three-year ultimate time limit on commencing informal or formal probate and appointment proceedings, with four narrow exceptions, one of which lets a proceeding start later only where nothing happened inside the three years and only with claims other than administration expenses barred. Section 30-2356 requires anyone holding a will, on request of an interested person, to deliver it with reasonable promptness to a person able to secure its probate or to an appropriate court, with civil liability for willful failure and contempt for refusing a court order. Read Nebraska will requirements for what makes one valid, and Nebraska intestate succession for who inherits without one.

A transfer-on-death deed signed but not recorded in time. Section 76-3410(a)(4) is the whole answer. A deed recorded on day thirty-one, or after the death, does nothing at all, and the property goes back into the probate column.

Naming the estate as beneficiary. A POD account with no surviving beneficiary belongs to the estate of the last surviving party under § 30-2723(b)(2)(A). A security in beneficiary form with no surviving beneficiary belongs to the estate under § 30-2740. Life insurance receivable by the executor is taxable under § 77-2001. Each of those is a form you can fix in an afternoon.

A Nebraska Checklist

1. Record a transfer-on-death deed for the house and any other Nebraska real estate, signed before two disinterested witnesses and an officer under seal, and confirm the register of deeds recorded it within thirty days of the signing. (§§ 76-3409, 76-3410(a)(4).)
2. Name an alternate beneficiary on that deed, and remember the 120-hour survival rule. (§ 76-3415(a)(2).)
3. Where the land is agricultural, say in the deed what happens to the growing crops, or they go to the estate by default. (§ 76-3405.)
4. Ask your insurer, before it matters, how the beneficiary keeps property insurance on the house after your death. (§ 76-3424.)
5. Pull the recorded deed on every co-owned property and read the survivorship language for yourself. (§§ 76-275.07, 76-2,109.)
6. Add or refresh payable-on-death beneficiaries on every bank account, and confirm the account is not registered as a tenancy in common. (§ 30-2723(c).)
7. Confirm any jointly held brokerage account carries survivorship wording before registering it in beneficiary form, and name a backup. (§§ 30-2735, 30-2740.)
8. Put each vehicle and motorboat in transfer-on-death form on the certificate of title, remembering the beneficiary takes subject to every lien. (§ 30-2715.01.)
9. Review every beneficiary designation after a marriage, divorce, birth or death, and record a writing declaring the severance where a divorce split a joint tenancy. (§§ 30-2333(d), 30-2333(e).)
10. Where a trust earns its place, fund it, and write the agent's trust powers into the power of attorney if anyone is expected to amend or fund it for you later. (§ 30-3854(e).)
11. Run the inheritance tax math for each person you plan to leave something to, using the class exemptions rather than one estate-wide number. (§§ 77-2004, 77-2005, 77-2006.)
12. Keep the will consistent with every deed and form, because in Nebraska the recorded deed and the bank's form beat the will. (§§ 76-3413, 30-2723.)

When to Call a Nebraska Attorney

Most of this list is paperwork you can handle with the bank, the broker, the county treasurer and the register of deeds. Call a licensed Nebraska attorney when:

• Nebraska long-term care assistance is on the table, because §§ 76-3418 and 76-3421 reach through the strongest tool on this page
• the estate holds farm ground, growing crops, mineral interests or land in more than one county, since each register of deeds records its own instrument
• a blended family means the deed, the beneficiary forms and the will point at different people
• a co-owned deed never made the survivorship clear and one owner has already died
• a divorce severed a joint tenancy and nobody recorded the writing that tells a buyer about it
• a trust exists and nobody can say which property was ever retitled into it
• the people inheriting fall into the 11 percent or 15 percent class and the estate is large enough for the tax to change the plan
• someone has already died and you are choosing between the two affidavits and a full case

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Nebraska have a transfer-on-death deed?

Yes. The Nebraska Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act sits at Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 76-3401 to 76-3424, and § 76-3405 lets an individual transfer property to one or more beneficiaries effective at the transferor's death by a transfer on death deed. Section 76-3411 makes the deed effective without notice to, delivery to, or acceptance by the beneficiary, and without consideration. Section 76-3414 keeps the transferor in full control while alive, including the right to sell or mortgage the property. Nebraska adds a farm rule most states do not have: where the property is agricultural land, § 76-3405 lets the deed direct the transferor's interest in growing crops to the estate or to the beneficiaries, and a deed that says nothing sends the growing crops to the estate.

How long do you have to record a Nebraska transfer-on-death deed?

Thirty days from the day it is executed. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-3410(a)(4) requires the deed to be recorded within thirty days after being executed as required in § 76-3409, before the transferor's death, and in the office of the register of deeds of the county where the property is located. Most transfer-on-death states require only the second of those three. A Nebraska deed signed in March and recorded in June fails even though the owner is still alive. Section 76-3409 also demands more than a notary: the deed must be attested in writing by two or more disinterested witnesses, whose signatures and the transferor's are made before an officer authorized to administer oaths and evidenced by that officer's certificate under official seal.

Can a Nebraska will revoke a transfer-on-death deed?

No. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-3413(a)(1) makes an instrument effective to revoke a recorded transfer on death deed only if it is one of four things: a later transfer on death deed, an instrument of revocation executed with the same formalities required by § 76-3409, an inter vivos deed, or an inter vivos deed to a bona fide purchaser. Each has to be acknowledged after the deed it revokes, and § 76-3413(a)(2) requires the first three to be recorded before the transferor dies, giving only the deed to a bona fide purchaser until the later of thirty days after execution or the transferor's death. Section 76-3413(c) adds that once a transfer on death deed is recorded it may not be revoked by a revocatory act on the deed, so tearing up or crossing out the copy in the drawer changes nothing. Where two people made the deed, § 76-3413(b) revokes a joint owners' deed only when every living joint owner who was a transferor revokes it.

Does avoiding probate avoid Nebraska inheritance tax?

No, and Nebraska writes that answer into the deed itself. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-3410(b)(1) requires every transfer on death deed to carry the warning that the property transferred remains subject to inheritance taxation in Nebraska to the same extent as if owned by the transferor at death. Section 77-2002(1) reaches any interest transferred by deed, grant, sale, or gift that is intended to take effect in possession or enjoyment after the owner's death, and subsection (1)(d) reaches joint tenancy property except the share the survivor can show was always theirs. Section 77-2018.02 then allows an independent county court proceeding to determine the tax where no probate was opened at all.

Does a Nebraska transfer-on-death deed protect the house from Medicaid?

No. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-3418 makes the beneficiary personally liable to account for medicaid reimbursement under §§ 68-919 and 76-3417 to the extent needed to discharge a claim left unpaid after the transferor's estate is applied, capped at the value of the interest transferred, and the right to recover reaches assistance provided before, at the same time as, or after the deed was signed and recorded. Section 76-3421 separately lets the Department of Health and Human Services require revocation of the deed by the transferor, the transferor's spouse, or both, as a condition of qualifying or staying qualified for medicaid. Section 76-3410(b)(1) requires the deed to print both of those warnings on its face.

Can you put a Nebraska vehicle in transfer-on-death form?

Yes, and a motorboat too, but the statute is in the probate code rather than the vehicle code. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-2715.01(1) lets an owner include a designation of beneficiary in the certificate of title, using the owner's name followed in substance by transfer on death to the named beneficiary, with TOD accepted as the abbreviation, subject to the rights of all lienholders whenever those liens arose. A trust may be the beneficiary. Subsection (2) gives the beneficiary no interest until the owner or the last surviving joint tenant dies and lets the owner change the designation at any time by filing an application for a subsequent certificate of title, with no beneficiary consent.

Does a divorce cancel Nebraska beneficiary designations?

It cancels a great deal. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-2333(d)(1) revokes any revocable disposition or appointment of property to a former spouse or to a relative of the former spouse in a governing instrument, any power of appointment conferred on either of them, and any nomination of either as personal representative, trustee, conservator, agent, or guardian. Section 30-2333(a)(6) defines governing instrument to include a deed, a transfer on death deed, an account with POD designation, and a security registered in beneficiary form. Subsection (d)(2) severs joint tenancy with right of survivorship between the former spouses into equal tenancies in common, and subsection (e) protects a good faith purchaser relying on apparent survivorship title unless a writing declaring the severance was recorded.

Related Guides

• Nebraska Transfer on Death Deed
• Nebraska Revocable Living Trust
• Nebraska Inheritance Tax
• Nebraska Small Estate Affidavits
• Nebraska Probate Guide
• Nebraska Will Requirements
• Nebraska Executor Duties
• Nebraska County Courts by County

This page describes Nebraska law broadly rather than advising on one property or one family. Every section quoted above was read at the Nebraska Legislature's published text on 2026-09-10, and every section whose amendment history ends inside the last two years was read against that history rather than summarized from an older article: §§ 76-3401, 76-3410 and 76-3424 carry Laws 2025, LB422, which added the property insurance warning for deeds created after September 3, 2025; § 30-24,125 carries Laws 2025, LB85; § 30-2715 carries Laws 2026, LB758; § 24-703 carries Laws 2026, LB1101; and §§ 30-3801 and 77-2004 carry Laws 2026, LB838, operative July 18, 2026. The fee totals were read on the Nebraska Judicial Branch schedule effective July 1, 2026 and checked against the statutes that build them. Confirm any figure, deadline or exemption with the register of deeds where the property sits, the county court for that county, or a licensed Nebraska attorney before you sign or record anything.

Sources:

• Title: Neb. Rev. Stat. § 24-703, Judges; contributions; deductions; fees taxed as costs; payment; late fees; funding of retirement system; actuarial valuation; transfer of funds; adjustments. Publisher: Nebraska Legislature. Publication Date: Laws 2026, LB1101, § 1; accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://nebraskalegislature.gov/laws/statutes.php?statute=24-703
• Title: Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-24,125, Collection of personal property by affidavit. Publisher: Nebraska Legislature. Publication Date: Laws 2025, LB85, § 1; accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://nebraskalegislature.gov/laws/statutes.php?statute=30-24,125
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• Title: Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-3401, Act, how cited. Publisher: Nebraska Legislature. Publication Date: Laws 2025, LB422, § 1; accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://nebraskalegislature.gov/laws/statutes.php?statute=76-3401
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• Title: Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-3412, Statement; filing. Publisher: Nebraska Legislature. Publication Date: Laws 2012, LB536, § 12; accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://nebraskalegislature.gov/laws/statutes.php?statute=76-3412
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• Title: Neb. Rev. Stat. § 77-2018.02, Inheritance tax; independent proceeding for determination in absence of probate of estate; petition; notice; waiver of notice; notice to Department of Health and Human Services. Publisher: Nebraska Legislature. Publication Date: Laws 2019, LB593, § 10; accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://nebraskalegislature.gov/laws/statutes.php?statute=77-2018.02
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• Title: Filing Fees and Court Costs, Effective 07-01-2026. Publisher: Nebraska Judicial Branch. Publication Date: Effective July 1, 2026; accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://nebraskajudicial.gov/rules/administrative-policies-schedules/filing-fees-and-court-costs

It is not legal advice.