What Happens When You're Named in a Will

Being named in a will makes you a beneficiary: a person the will's author chose to receive money, property, or a share of what's left. You usually find out by mail from the executor. State probate codes make that notice the executor's job and put a deadline on it: Washington gives the personal representative 20 days from appointment,^[1] and Texas allows 60 days from the order admitting the will to probate.^[2]

Then comes the wait. California's courts tell families a formal probate typically takes 9 to 18 months,^[5] and gifts go out near the end. Here's how you find out, what you're entitled to see, when money actually moves, and the ways a named beneficiary can end up with less than the will promised.

The gathered-family will reading comes from movies. In practice, the executor mails you a notice, and state law sets the deadline.

Once the court appoints the executor, that deadline starts running. In Washington, the personal representative has 20 days from appointment to give written notice to every heir and beneficiary, personally or by mail.^[1] In Texas, it's 60 days from the order admitting the will to probate.^[2] Deadlines differ by state, which is why one family hears in three weeks and another waits two months.

You don't have to wait for the letter. The will itself has to reach the court: in California, whoever holds it must deliver it to the clerk of the superior court within 30 days of learning of the death.^[3] And probate files, including the will once it's filed, are court records, which courts generally treat as open to the public.^[19] Call the probate court in the county where the person lived and ask whether a case is open. Our probate explainer shows how to pull a case file.

It varies by state, and Texas shows how wide the range is. The notice a Texas executor sends must include either a copy of the will and the order admitting it, or only a summary of the gifts you're getting plus the court and docket number.^[2] A Texas beneficiary can be fully, legally notified without ever seeing the document.

The courthouse fixes that. Once the will is filed, it sits in the court's probate file, and court records are generally open to the public.^[19] Probate courts fill copy requests; one South Carolina probate court puts it plainly: unless otherwise noted, all of its documents are public records.^[4] Have the case number ready if you can, and expect a copy fee. If you can't find a case and the executor won't answer questions, a licensed probate attorney in that state can tell you what your options are.

Nothing is owed to you on day one. The executor's authority begins with the court appointment, and the estate settles the person's debts, taxes, and expenses before gifts go out.^[8] The executor's whole job is that sequence.

That's why the wait is measured in months. California's court self-help guide puts a typical formal probate at 9 to 18 months, sometimes longer.^[5] A contested will, a house that won't sell, or an estate tax return stretches it further.

Two things move faster. Assets with their own named beneficiary skip probate entirely: life insurance and payable-on-death accounts pay out on a claim form and a death certificate. And small estates can qualify for shortcut procedures with much shorter timelines; the dollar thresholds are state law, so check your state's guide.

The words in the will decide what you're actually holding.

• A specific gift is a named thing: the house on Maple Street, the truck, the ring. If that thing isn't in the estate at death because it was sold, given away, or destroyed, the gift is generally extinguished. The legal term is ademption.^[7] You don't automatically get its cash value instead.
• A general gift is a dollar amount: $20,000 to a niece. It's paid from whatever the estate holds, so selling any one asset doesn't erase it. It shrinks only when the estate runs short.
• A percentage, or "everything else," makes you a residuary beneficiary. The residue is what remains after the executor settles all debts, taxes, and expenses and distributes the named gifts.^[8] You're paid last, and the number isn't knowable until the estate is nearly done. Thirty percent of an estate can be a large sum or almost nothing.

When an estate can't cover both its obligations and its gifts, gifts shrink in an order called abatement, set by state law unless the will sets its own. Washington's statute spends property in this order: property the will never mentioned, then residuary gifts, then dollar-amount gifts, then specific gifts.^[6] The order matters. The person left "everything else" absorbs the shortfall before the person left the car loses anything.

Start federal, because the main rule is simple. Federal law excludes property you receive by bequest or inheritance from your gross income.^[9] There's no line on your 1040 for a $100,000 bequest and no federal income tax for receiving it. Life insurance proceeds paid because of a death generally stay out of your income too.^[10]

What you do owe:

• Tax on what the inheritance earns after you get it. The exclusion covers the property itself. Interest, dividends, and rent it produces once it's yours are ordinary taxable income.^[9]
• Income tax on inherited retirement money. Distributions you take from an inherited traditional IRA or 401(k) count as taxable income, and most non-spouse beneficiaries must empty the account by the end of the 10th year after the owner's death.^[11]
• Capital gains if you sell inherited property at a gain. Your basis is generally the property's fair market value on the date of death. Sell above that and the gain is taxable.^[15]
• State inheritance tax in five states. Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania tax beneficiaries on what they receive, and Maryland levies both an inheritance tax and an estate tax.^[13] The rate follows your relationship to the person who died: Pennsylvania charges a surviving spouse 0 percent, direct descendants 4.5 percent, siblings 12 percent, and most other heirs 15 percent.^[14] Your state's rules are in our state guides.

The federal estate tax lands on the estate, filed and paid by the executor before distributions, and for deaths in 2026 the filing threshold is $15 million.^[12] Most estates never get near it.

Four ways it happens.

• Lapse: the beneficiary died first. A gift to someone who dies before the will's author lapses, meaning it fails.^[16] Many states have anti-lapse statutes that send the gift to the dead beneficiary's own descendants instead, and they generally cover only relatives: which relatives qualify varies by state.^[18]
• Abatement: the estate ran short. Debts and expenses get paid first, and gifts shrink in an order set by state law, unless the will sets its own; Washington's sequence is above.^[6] A will can promise $50,000 the estate no longer has.
• Ademption: the thing is gone. A specific gift of property the person no longer owned at death is extinguished.^[7]
• Disclaimer: you say no. Nobody has to accept an inheritance. People refuse to keep an asset out of their own taxable estate, to move it to the next taker in line, or because the asset costs more than it's worth to them. For the refusal to work as a qualified disclaimer under federal tax law, it must be in writing, delivered within 9 months of the death, made before you've accepted any benefit of the property, and the asset must pass on without your direction.^[17] Done right, the law treats you as never having received the gift.

One more gap that catches families: a will only controls probate assets. If the will leaves you "my savings account" but that account names someone else as its payable-on-death beneficiary, the account passes by its own designation and never enters the estate.

Get the county and case number from the executor, then verify the case yourself at the probate court. Keep every notice. Don't spend an inheritance you haven't received, because between debts, abatement, and a slow house sale, the number can shrink. And if months pass with no notice, no filing, and no answers, remember that the executor answers to the probate court that appointed them. A licensed probate attorney in the estate's state can tell you when and how to push.