Got a TODD question.

My grandmother who was in a nursing home passed this week and had a TODD on her house naming her three children the beneficiaries (grandfather passed away long ago). My father is the executor and was her POA. The problem is that one of the beneficiaries, my uncle/father's brother passed away in 2020.

My uncle had no children. He was the black sheep of the family. Grifter. Ex con. About the only redeeming quality he had was the fact he had no kids. He did have an estranged wife though. She wasn't any better. You can see where this is going. Are we ****ed? Is this grifter going to get 1/3 of the sale of the house? The TODD does not name her, and there's no explicit per stirpes clause. I she an heir?

What makes this worse is that the house is in the process of being sold (found a cash buyer and agreed on price) but is not scheduled to close until next week. And had my grandmother lived a few more days this might've been a moot point.

I'll be interested if this sale can go through. With the TODD, upon owners death, the asset should be transferred to the beneficiaries (which is where you would resolve your question). Then, the new owners would have to agree to sell the property.

Even without the TODD, you would need court documents showing the asset to be sold as part of the probate process. POA is also invalid once the death occurred.

I'm no attorney.

Unless the buyer is willing to buy without title insurance (I hope it's not that cheap) you're probably going to have to get the title company to help you clean it up.

Looks like if your grandmother entered into a formal sales agreement prior to her death, this can move forward. I still don't know, however, if the POA entered into the agreement on her behalf if that is still valid (I would assume it is).

To answer your initial question, the link below says the share to the deceased beneficiary does not pass to the remaining beneficiaries. Therefore, it would either revert back to probating Grandma's will to give away that 1/3, or it would be passing to deceased beneficiaries estate.. that link doesn't say which.

https://raniacombslaw.com/resources/the-texas-transfer-on-death-deed

ETA:. https://texaslawhelp.org/article/transfer-on-death-deed-todd-information-and-answers

Still not a complete answer, but last bullet under pitfalls in the above link says if a beneficiary predecease owner, it nullifies the TODD. That sounds absolute that the entire TODD is no good now and everything goes to probate.

My final assumption is that TODD is void at this point. Assuming valid sales agreement with Grandma before her passing, sale goes through with proceeds paid into her estate and probated via her will (because house is now gone, so no deed to transfer ownership to anyone else). If no valid sales agreement, sale can't go through now until the the will is certified and then you follow the probate process, and the executor would then sell it and distribute assets according to instructions in the will once it is sold, along with any other assets she has.

I'd love to know the estate attorney that recommended a TODD to 3 beneficiaries, one ex-con in the mix. Or maybe that's exactly what Grandma wanted . Ex-con to get his share regardless of what the rest of the family felt?