Beyond the Will: A Tennessee Family’s Guide to Estate Planning

For many East Tennessee families, estate planning sits in that quiet stack of decisions that always seems to belong in next week, or next year, or maybe after the next big life event. There is no immediate deadline. No one is calling to ask whether you’ve done it. And when most people picture estate planning, they picture a will, which feels both manageable and easy to keep putting off.

But here is what we often see in our work with families across Johnson City, Oak Ridge, and Crossville: a will is only one piece of a comprehensive estate plan. The cost of waiting, or assuming a will is enough, can show up at the worst possible moments. When families are grieving. When adult children are scrambling. When financial accounts are frozen, and when decisions about your care or your assets are being made by people who do not know what you would have wanted.

This guide is for families who want to get this right. Whether you are starting from scratch or you have documents in place that haven’t been reviewed in years, here is what estate planning actually looks like in Tennessee, and the conversations worth having now so your family is not left navigating them later.

What estate planning really means

Estate planning is bigger than distributing your assets after you pass away. It is also about who makes decisions on your behalf if you become incapacitated, how your healthcare wishes are honored, how your minor or dependent children are cared for, and how the next generation receives what you intend to pass on.

A complete estate plan answers three questions:

1. If something happens to me, who has the legal authority to act on my behalf?
2. What happens to my assets when I pass away, and how quickly and privately do they reach the people I want them to reach?
3. What do I want my healthcare to look like if I can’t communicate it myself?

A will alone answers only part of the second question. The first and third, and most of the second, require additional documents, conversations, and coordination.

Why most Tennessee families haven’t started yet

If you have not put an estate plan together, you are in the majority. A 2025 Caring.com study found that more than 50% of U.S. respondents don’t have a will at all, much less a coordinated estate plan. 

The reasons are familiar. Estate planning forces conversations most people instinctively avoid: about mortality, about family dynamics, about money. It feels like something that can be saved for “later.” And it often feels intimidating because there is no obvious place to start.

But waiting has real costs. In Tennessee, when someone passes away without a will, their assets are distributed according to the state’s intestacy laws — a rigid formula that may not reflect what the person actually wanted. Probate becomes more complex and more public. Family disputes become more likely. And the people left behind are forced to make decisions in grief that should have been made calmly, years earlier.

The five core documents every Tennessee family should have

A complete estate plan is built around a handful of foundational documents. The exact mix depends on your situation, but for most East Tennessee families, these five are the starting point.

1. A last will and testament. This is the document that directs how your probate assets are distributed and, critically, who serves as the guardian of any minor children. For a will to be legally valid in Tennessee, it must be in writing, signed by the person making it, and witnessed by two independent witnesses. 

2. A durable financial power of attorney. This designates someone to manage your financial affairs (paying bills, accessing accounts, managing investments) if you become unable to do so yourself. Without it, your family may have to petition a court for conservatorship, which is slow, expensive, and public.

3. A healthcare directive (also called a living will or advance directive). This documents your wishes about medical treatment if you cannot communicate them yourself, including end-of-life care decisions. It removes an enormous burden from family members who would otherwise have to guess at what you would have wanted.

4. A durable power of attorney for healthcare. This designates a specific person to make medical decisions on your behalf if you cannot make them yourself. Combined with your healthcare directive, it ensures your medical wishes are honored by someone you trust.

5. Updated beneficiary designations. This is the document most families overlook. Retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and certain bank accounts pass directly to whoever is named as the beneficiary, regardless of what your will says. If your beneficiary designations are outdated (an ex-spouse, a deceased relative, or no one at all), your assets may not go where you intend.

For some families, a revocable living trust is also worth considering. Trusts can help avoid probate, maintain privacy, and provide more nuanced control over how assets are distributed over time. Whether a trust makes sense depends on the size and complexity of your estate, which is a conversation worth having with a financial advisor and an estate planning attorney together.

Tennessee’s unique estate planning landscape

Tennessee is one of the most estate-planning-friendly states in the country. Tennessee does not have an estate tax or inheritance tax, nor does it have a gift tax. For most East Tennessee families, the only estate tax consideration is the federal one. 

For the vast majority of families, this means federal estate tax is not the central concern. The central concerns are probate, control, and clarity. Making sure your assets reach the right people, efficiently, with as little legal friction as possible.

For families with significant assets, business interests, or complex blended-family situations, more advanced strategies (irrevocable trusts, gifting strategies, charitable planning) may be worth exploring. Those conversations belong with a fiduciary advisor and an experienced estate planning attorney working in coordination.

When to update your plan

Estate planning is not a one-time event. The documents you put in place at 45 may not reflect your wishes or your circumstances at 65. As a general rule, it is worth reviewing your estate plan after any of the following:

• Marriage or divorce
• The birth or adoption of a child or grandchild
• The death of a spouse, beneficiary, or named executor
• A significant change in assets or net worth
• A move to or from Tennessee
• The sale or purchase of a business
• Three to five years since your last review, even if nothing major has changed

While the documents themselves do not expire, the circumstances they were built around often do.

Why coordination matters more than documents

Most families think of estate planning as a one-time legal exercise: hire an attorney, sign documents, file them somewhere safe. That is part of it. But the deeper value of estate planning is in how it coordinates with the rest of your financial life.

Your beneficiary designations need to align with your will. Your retirement accounts need to be structured so that withdrawals in retirement do not undermine the legacy you intend to leave. Your trust, if you have one, needs to be properly funded. Your healthcare directive needs to be on file with the right people. And all of it needs to be reviewed regularly as your life, your assets, and the tax law change.

This is where working with a fee-only fiduciary financial advisor can be especially valuable. A fiduciary advisor coordinates the estate planning conversation with your retirement income plan, your tax strategy, and your investment portfolio so the documents do not sit in isolation from the rest of your financial picture.

At Roan Capital Partners, we work alongside our clients’ estate planning attorneys to make sure the strategy on paper actually plays out in practice. Because we operate on a fee-only model, our only incentive is to help your family get this right.