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Vermont Estate Planning Basics
Pillar GuideVermont27 min read

Vermont Estate Planning Basics

Three Vermont planning documents, three signing rules. A will takes two witnesses, an advance directive two and no notary, a power of attorney neither.

By Settled Editorial

A Vermont estate plan runs on four documents. A will under 14 V.S.A. § 5 names who inherits and who settles the estate. A financial power of attorney under 14 V.S.A. § 4005 puts someone in charge of your money if you cannot act. An advance directive under 18 V.S.A. § 9703 names a health care agent. A revocable trust under Title 14A is optional.

Here is the Vermont wrinkle that trips up almost everyone who arrives with a checklist from another state. Those three signed documents carry three different signing rules, and none of them is the notary-first rule most people expect. The advance directive takes two witnesses and never a notary. The power of attorney takes neither. The will takes two credible witnesses who attest and subscribe in the presence of the testator and each other. Read this page as a planning map and check anything touching your own house or your own family with a licensed Vermont attorney. For what happens after a death, start with the Vermont probate guide.

The Four Documents And The Sections That Govern Them

DocumentWhat it doesVermont law
WillNames who inherits and who serves as executor14 V.S.A. § 5
Financial power of attorneyLets an agent handle your money and property14 V.S.A. § 4005
Advance directiveNames a health care agent and records treatment wishes18 V.S.A. § 9703
Revocable living trustHolds retitled property and skips the court file14A V.S.A. § 101
Enhanced life estate deedPasses Vermont land to a named grantee at death27 V.S.A. § 654

Every adult in Vermont should hold the first three. The trust and the deed answer a narrower question, which is what happens to the house. Add finer detail once you own real estate, have children under 18, run a business, hold large retirement accounts, or married again with children from an earlier relationship.

One vocabulary note before the documents. Vermont is not a Uniform Probate Code state and does not use the phrase "personal representative" as its statutory term. Title 14 says executor or administrator throughout, and the court that hears the matter is the Probate Division of the Superior Court. 4 V.S.A. § 272(a) puts one probate district in each county, designated by the name of the county, so Vermont runs 14 of them and each is named for its county rather than called a county probate court.

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The Will

Your will is the document that speaks for you at the Probate Division. It says who inherits, names the executor, and records who you want raising your minor children.

14 V.S.A. § 1 sets who may sign one: every individual 18 years of age or over, or emancipated by court order, who is of sound mind.

14 V.S.A. § 5(a) then lists three requirements. A Vermont will shall be:

  1. In writing.
  2. Signed in the presence of two or more credible witnesses by the testator, or in the testator's name by some other person in the testator's presence and by the testator's express direction.
  3. Attested and subscribed by the witnesses in the presence of the testator and each other.

That third clause is the part a downloaded form drops. Vermont witnesses do not sign in separate rooms on separate afternoons. They watch the testator sign, then they sign in front of the testator and in front of one another.

Vermont has no holographic will. The section list for chapter 1 runs §§ 1, 2, 3, 4 (repealed), 5, 6 (repealed), 7, 8 (repealed), 9 (repealed), 10 and 11, and carries no handwritten-will section. One route stays open, and it matters to anyone who moved here. 14 V.S.A. § 112(a) deems a will executed outside Vermont, in the mode prescribed either by the law of the place of execution or by the law of the testator's domicile, to be legally executed here, provided it is in writing and subscribed by the testator. So a handwritten will validly signed in a state that accepts holographs can still be allowed after a move to Vermont. A handwritten page signed at a Vermont kitchen table with nobody watching cannot.

Two more signing rules matter. A will becomes self-proved under 14 V.S.A. § 108 by the sworn acknowledgment of the testator and the witnesses before a notary public or other official authorized to administer oaths in the place of execution. That step pays off at 14 V.S.A. § 107(b)(2), which lets the court allow a self-proved will with no hearing at all. And 14 V.S.A. § 10 makes a gift to a subscribing witness or that witness's spouse voidable unless two other competent subscribing witnesses signed. Pick witnesses who inherit nothing.

A will has limits. It cannot move property already held in a funded trust, override a beneficiary form on a retirement account, or redirect property that carries survivorship rights. The Vermont will requirements guide walks the whole signing sequence and the custodian's 30-day filing duty.

The Financial Power Of Attorney

A financial power of attorney names an agent to handle your money and property while you are alive. Vermont adopted the Uniform Power of Attorney Act at 14 V.S.A. chapter 127, added by 2023, No. 60, § 1, effective July 1, 2023, which makes Vermont one of the newest adoptions in the country. The chapter was amended again in 2024 and 2025. A Vermont power of attorney form downloaded before mid-2024 is stale, and the statutory form is one of the parts that changed. That single fact is worth more than any other line on this page to a Vermonter holding an old document.

Four features catch people out.

Signing takes your signature and nothing else. 14 V.S.A. § 4005 is two sentences. The power of attorney shall be signed by the principal, or in the principal's conscious presence by another individual the principal directs to sign the principal's name. A signature is presumed genuine if the principal acknowledges it before a notary public or other individual authorized to take acknowledgments. No witnesses. No disclosure statement. No separate acknowledgment from the agent. Notarize it anyway, because the third-party protections at 14 V.S.A. § 4019 reach only an acknowledged power of attorney, and those protections are what make a bank accept it.

It is durable by default, and durability covers more than incapacity. 14 V.S.A. § 4004 says a power of attorney created under the chapter is durable unless it expressly provides that it terminates on the incapacity or unavailability of the principal. Unavailability runs through the whole chapter and 14 V.S.A. § 4002(7)(B) defines it as being missing, detained including incarcerated, or outside the United States and unable to return. That second word is Vermont's own addition to the uniform act, and it sits beside incapacity in the termination rules and in the springing trigger as well. A form drafted for another state will not carry it.

Two agents act independently unless you say otherwise. 14 V.S.A. § 4011(a) provides that unless the power of attorney says something different, each co-agent may exercise its authority independently. Next door in New Hampshire the default runs the other way, and co-agents there must act jointly, so naming two children as co-agents in Vermont hands each of them a free hand. Say in the document that they must act together if that is what you want.

Twelve powers never come along for the ride. Under 14 V.S.A. § 4031(a), an agent may do any of twelve listed things only if the document expressly grants the authority. The list covers creating or revoking an inter vivos trust, making a gift, creating or changing rights of survivorship, changing a beneficiary designation, delegating authority, waiving a joint and survivor annuity, exercising authority over electronic communications, disclaiming property, waiving spousal rights under 14 V.S.A. § 323, handling intellectual property, and, at subdivision (12), conveying or revising a grantee designation by enhanced life estate deed under 27 V.S.A. chapter 6. That last item is Vermont's own addition and it is the hook between the two documents most Vermont plans use for a house.

One rule lives outside Title 14 and a Title 14 reading misses it entirely. 27 V.S.A. § 305(a) says a deed or other conveyance of land made by virtue of a power of attorney has no effect and is not admissible in evidence unless the power of attorney is signed, acknowledged, and recorded in the office where the deed is recorded. In Vermont that office is the town clerk, not a county registry. So a power of attorney meant to sell or mortgage your house needs a notary and a recording even though chapter 127 asks for neither.

There is a bonus most people miss. 14 V.S.A. § 4008(a) lets you nominate a guardian of your estate or your person inside the power of attorney, and the court shall appoint in accordance with your most recent nomination except for good cause shown or disqualification. Sign the document while you are well and you pick the guardian too. The Vermont power of attorney guide covers the gift standard, the accounting clock, and the six grounds a third party may use to refuse.

The Advance Directive

Vermont folds both medical documents into one instrument. 18 V.S.A. § 9701(1) defines an advance directive as a written record executed under § 9703 that may appoint an agent, name a preferred clinician, give treatment instructions, make an anatomical gift, and direct disposition of remains. There is no separate Vermont living will statute to hunt for, and a document written under prior law as a durable power of attorney for health care still counts.

Execution is where the templates fail. 18 V.S.A. § 9703(b)(1) requires the directive to be dated, executed by the principal or by another individual at the principal's express direction if the principal cannot sign, and signed by two or more witnesses at least 18 years of age who affirm the principal appeared to understand the document and to be free from duress or undue influence. The section never mentions a notary or a justice of the peace. There is no witnesses-or-notary alternative here.

The witness bar is the inverse of what most states do. Section 9703(c) says neither the agent nor the principal's spouse, parent, adult sibling, adult child, or adult grandchild may witness. Heirs, beneficiaries and creditors are not barred, and a health care provider may witness under § 9703(b)(3). So the neighbor who inherits nothing is a fine witness and your daughter is not.

Two operating rules decide when the document does anything:

  • The explainer rule is a condition of effectiveness. If you sign while being admitted to or living in a nursing home or residential care facility (§ 9703(d)) or while being admitted to or a patient in a hospital (§ 9703(e)), the directive shall not be effective unless a listed independent person explains its nature and effect and signs an affirmation. The list runs to an ombudsman, a member of the clergy, a Vermont-licensed attorney, a Probate Division designee, a hospital designee, a mental health patient representative and others. Signing at home avoids the question entirely.
  • One clinician turns it on, and it need not wait for incapacity. 18 V.S.A. § 9706(a) gives three alternative triggers: a single clinician's determination of incapacity with findings on cause, nature and projected duration; a condition you specified yourself, which may have nothing to do with capacity; or upon execution, if you said so. A principal who still has capacity keeps concurrent authority under § 9711(b), and the principal's decision controls.

Vermont runs a free, voluntary Vermont Advance Directive Registry so a hospital can pull your document at 2 a.m. Register it, then hand copies to your agent and your clinician. The Vermont advance directive guide covers revocation, the registry, and why a Vermont surrogate can consent only to a DNR or COLST order rather than to treatment generally.

Trusts Under The Vermont Trust Code

A revocable living trust holds property while you live and passes it to named beneficiaries at your death with no court file. You stay in control as trustee, and a successor trustee steps in when you die or lose capacity.

Vermont adopted the Uniform Trust Code as its own title. 14A V.S.A. § 101 reads in full: "This title may be cited as the Vermont Trust Code," added by 2009, No. 20, § 1. Two chapters of old Title 14 still carry trust-sounding headings and neither is the live law, so a citation to 14 V.S.A. chapter 105 or 107 for a revocable trust points at the wrong place.

Three sections decide how a Vermont trust behaves.

Revocable is the default. 14A V.S.A. § 602(a) says that unless the terms of a trust expressly provide that the trust is irrevocable, the settlor may revoke or amend it. Vermont flipped the old common law presumption, and the subsection carves out trusts created under an instrument executed before the code took effect. If you want an irrevocable trust in Vermont, the document has to say so in words.

Capacity matches the will standard. 14A V.S.A. § 601 sets the capacity required to create, amend, revoke or add property to a revocable trust, or to direct the trustee, at the same level required to make a will.

A trust is no shield from your own creditors. 14A V.S.A. § 505(a)(1) subjects the property of a revocable trust to your creditors during your lifetime, and § 505(a)(3) subjects the property of a trust that was revocable at your death to your creditors, administration costs, funeral expenses and statutory allowances to a surviving spouse and children, to the extent the probate estate cannot cover them. Treat the trust as a probate and incapacity tool.

Funding is where these plans fail. A trust keeps out of court only the property you actually retitle into it. The deed has to be signed and recorded with the town clerk where the land sits, and the accounts have to be moved. An unfunded trust in a drawer changes nothing, which is why a pour-over will usually rides alongside it. Work the question through the Vermont revocable living trust guide before you buy one, and read it against an enhanced life estate deed if a single house is the whole question.

Vermont also allows a trust for the care of an animal at 14A V.S.A. § 408. It lasts for the life of the animal, or of the last surviving animal where more than one is covered, and a person named in the trust or appointed by the Probate Division enforces it. See Vermont pet trusts for how to fund one.

Two Vermont Instruments A Generic Checklist Omits

A national estate planning article will tell you to sign a transfer on death deed and to leave the car to a beneficiary. Vermont answers those two sentences in opposite directions.

The house: an enhanced life estate deed, not a TOD deed. Vermont has no transfer on death or beneficiary deed act. What it has is 27 V.S.A. chapter 6, the Enhanced Life Estate Deed Act, added by 2019, No. 145 (Adj. Sess.), § 1, effective July 13, 2020. Other states call the same document a Lady Bird deed, and Vermont is one of the few that wrote its version into statute with an optional form at 27 V.S.A. § 660. 27 V.S.A. § 654 says a validly executed and recorded deed does not affect your ownership rights or your creditors, transfers no present interest to the grantee, and does not open the property to the grantee's creditors, and subsection (b) lets you sell without the grantee's consent or knowledge. Two traps ride along: a recorded deed is subject to the property transfer tax under § 654(d), and a married owner needs the spouse to join in the execution and acknowledgment of a homestead conveyance. The Vermont enhanced life estate deed guide has the drafting sequence.

The car: transfer on death titling, which Vermont does allow. 23 V.S.A. § 2023(f) says that where the title identifies a person who will become the owner on the death of the principal owner, the principal owner keeps all rights of ownership and transfer until death, and the designated transferee holds no ownership rights until the principal owner has died as established by a valid death certificate. The Department of Motor Vehicles administers this on form VT-007, whose own text limits the designation to vehicles titled to one owner. The scope stops at motor vehicles. A vessel, a snowmobile and an ATV are excluded, and 23 V.S.A. § 3816(a) carries no transfer on death designation for them at all.

So Vermont says no to a death deed for land and yes to death titling for a car. Never infer one answer from the other.

Titling And Beneficiary Forms Beat Your Will

Here is the part people skip. Beneficiary designations and how a deed is worded pass property on their own terms, and they override what your will says. Line them up with the will or they will work against it.

Deeds between two people. 27 V.S.A. § 2(a) construes a conveyance or devise of land to two or more people as an estate in common, not a joint tenancy, unless the instrument says the grantees take jointly, as joint tenants, in joint tenancy, or to them and the survivors of them. The section carves out conveyances made in trust, conveyances made to spouses, and instruments where a joint tenancy manifestly appears. Survivorship in Vermont is a drafting choice. Pull the recorded deed from the town clerk and read the granting clause.

Bank accounts. 8 V.S.A. § 14205 codifies the payable-on-death account, and it carries a catch. The balance vests in the surviving payees at the last account holder's death, the bank may pay 90 days later, and subsection (c) makes a payable-on-death payee liable to the personal representative for debts and expenses the estate cannot cover, with no proceeding later than two years after the death.

Securities and brokerage accounts. 9 V.S.A. chapter 134 lets a Vermont security be registered in beneficiary form. 9 V.S.A. § 4359 makes the transfer nontestamentary and then imposes a one-year clawback for allowed claims and statutory allowances the probate estate cannot satisfy.

Retirement accounts and life insurance. These pass by the form on file with the plan or the insurer. Name a first choice and a backup, then refresh both after a marriage, a divorce, a birth or a death in the family. A stale beneficiary form is the most common reason these accounts land in probate by accident.

For the whole menu of transfers that skip the court, see how to avoid probate in Vermont. Note the pattern in the three paragraphs above: Vermont wrote a creditor clawback into every one of its nonprobate transfer statutes, so "it avoids probate" and "it is beyond creditors" are different claims here.

What Vermont Decides When A Document Is Missing

An estate plan is not only for large estates. Here is what state law decides on your behalf when a document is not there.

  • No will. 14 V.S.A. § 311 gives your surviving spouse the entire intestate estate if no descendant survives you, or if every surviving descendant is also the spouse's. If any descendant of yours is not a descendant of your spouse, the spouse takes one-half and the rest runs down the ladder in 14 V.S.A. § 314. See Vermont intestate succession for the tiers.
  • No power of attorney. Your family petitions the Probate Division for a guardianship under 14 V.S.A. chapter 111. It is public, it takes months, and the court picks the guardian unless you nominated one under § 4008. See Vermont guardianship planning.
  • No advance directive. Medical decisions fall to a surrogate under 18 V.S.A. § 9731, and Vermont's surrogate power is narrow. A surrogate may consent to or withhold consent for a DNR or COLST order only, chosen by agreement among interested individuals with no ranked priority list. Anything beyond that needs a guardian.
  • No plan for titled assets. Property in your sole name runs through the Probate Division, with filings, a public file and months of administration. If nobody opens an estate at all, 14 V.S.A. § 1801 is the cleanup bill: where record title has stood in the name of a person dead more than seven years, clearing it takes a verified petition, notice and a hearing.

The Vermont Tax Picture

Vermont charges an estate tax and no inheritance tax. 32 V.S.A. § 7442a sets the rate table: a Vermont estate under $5,000,000.00 owes none, and an estate of $5,000,000.00 or more owes 16 percent of the excess over $5,000,000.00, apportioned by the Vermont-situs fraction in subsection (b). Read that carefully, because plenty of articles get it wrong. The 16 percent hits the excess, not the whole estate, so an estate at $5,100,000.00 faces tax on $100,000.00.

Two more lines belong in a planning conversation. Vermont's inheritance tax chapters, 32 V.S.A. chapters 181 and 183, are repealed in full even though both still appear in the Title 32 chapter list under live-sounding names. And avoiding probate does not shrink the tax, because the Vermont gross estate at 32 V.S.A. § 7402(13) is built from the federal gross estate. A funded trust changes the § 7442a computation by nothing. See the Vermont federal estate tax guide for the return and its deadline.

Planning For Minor Children

If you have children under 18, your will is where you record who should raise them. A Vermont court makes the appointment, and a clear written nomination carries real weight when a family is arguing at the worst possible moment. Many parents pair the nomination with a trust that holds the children's inheritance until they are older, rather than handing a lump sum to an 18-year-old on their birthday.

When To Review What You Signed

Documents drift out of date faster than people expect. Look at yours every three to five years, and sooner after any of these:

  1. A marriage, a civil union, or a divorce.
  2. The birth or adoption of a child.
  3. The death of a beneficiary, an agent, or your named executor.
  4. A move to Vermont from another state, or a move away.
  5. Buying or selling a house, or selling a business.

Vermont adds one review trigger of its own. If your financial power of attorney predates mid-2024, have it looked at, because chapter 127 arrived on July 1, 2023 and was amended in 2024 and again in 2025.

To change a Vermont will, sign a codicil that amends it or sign a fresh will that revokes the old one. A new will is usually cleaner. After a divorce, walk back through every beneficiary form as well, because those forms move property no matter what your will says.

Frequently Asked Questions

What documents do I need for an estate plan in Vermont?

Four carry most of the weight. A will executed under 14 V.S.A. § 5 names who inherits and who serves as executor. A financial power of attorney under 14 V.S.A. chapter 127 puts someone in charge of your money if you cannot act. An advance directive under 18 V.S.A. chapter 231 names a health care agent and records your treatment wishes, in one document rather than two. A revocable trust under Title 14A, the Vermont Trust Code, is optional and earns its cost when you want privacy, out-of-state property handled, or a clean handoff if you lose capacity.

Does a Vermont will or power of attorney need a notary?

Neither one needs a notary to be valid, and the rules differ anyway. 14 V.S.A. § 5 requires a will to be in writing, signed in the presence of two or more credible witnesses, and attested and subscribed by those witnesses in the presence of the testator and each other. A notary enters only through the optional self-proving acknowledgment at 14 V.S.A. § 108. 14 V.S.A. § 4005 asks a power of attorney for the principal's signature alone. Notarizing it raises a presumption that the signature is genuine and unlocks the third-party protections at 14 V.S.A. § 4019, so it is still worth doing.

Does a Vermont advance directive need a notary?

No, and there is no notary alternative in the statute. 18 V.S.A. § 9703(b)(1) requires the directive to be dated, executed by the principal, and signed by two or more witnesses at least 18 years of age who affirm the principal appeared to understand the document and to be free from duress. Section 9703(c) bars the agent, and the principal's spouse, parent, adult sibling, adult child and adult grandchild, from witnessing. Vermont folds the health care agent and the living will into one instrument, so there is no separate living will to sign.

Is a handwritten will valid in Vermont?

Not if it was signed in Vermont without witnesses. The section list for 14 V.S.A. chapter 1 carries no holographic will provision, and § 5 admits no exception to the two-witness rule. One route survives. 14 V.S.A. § 112(a) treats a will executed outside Vermont in the mode prescribed by the law of the place of execution or of the testator's domicile as legally executed here, provided it is in writing and subscribed by the testator.

Is a revocable living trust revocable by default in Vermont?

Yes, and that reverses the old common law rule. 14A V.S.A. § 602(a) says that unless the terms of a trust expressly provide that the trust is irrevocable, the settlor may revoke or amend it. The subsection does not apply to a trust created under an instrument executed before the Vermont Trust Code took effect. 14A V.S.A. § 601 sets the capacity to create, amend, revoke or add property to a revocable trust at the same level required to make a will.

Does Vermont charge an estate tax or an inheritance tax?

Vermont charges an estate tax and no inheritance tax. 32 V.S.A. § 7442a taxes a Vermont estate under $5,000,000.00 at none, and an estate of $5,000,000.00 or more at 16 percent of the excess over $5,000,000.00, then apportions the result by the Vermont-situs fraction in subsection (b). The 16 percent applies to the excess and not to the whole estate. Vermont's inheritance tax chapters, 32 V.S.A. chapters 181 and 183, are repealed in full.

Related Vermont Guides

This page is general information about Vermont estate planning. Planning turns on facts specific to your family and your property, so confirm anything that affects your situation with a licensed Vermont attorney before you sign or record a document.

Sources:

It is not legal advice.

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Settled Estate is not a law firm and does not give legal advice.

Information current as of August 4, 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 Vermont can change. Consult with a qualified attorney for advice specific to your situation. Full disclaimer.

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