HB 273-VEHICLES: TRANSFER ON DEATH TITLE; ESTATES    10:25:29 AM CHAIR STOLTZE announced the consideration of HB 273. DENEEN TUCK, Staff, Representative Lynn, Alaska State Legislature, Juneau, Alaska, read the sponsor statement for HB 273 with commentary as follows: HB 273 is a way that people can plan their estate without going through the problems, length and expense of probate; this is the fourth step in this process. A number of years ago Title 13 provisions were added that would allow a person to have a Transfer on Death (TOD) bank account and designate a beneficiary with one or more beneficiaries, depending on the institution, and simply designating to the account by filling out a small card. When you open a bank account or thereafter, you can change it or do anything you want with it, but it has proven very beneficial. Title 13 provides for brokerage accounts, like Merrill Lynch or accounts that do the same thing and these are also permitted under Federal law; it has proven to be a very good step in the area of estate planning and not controversial. You don't have to do it, but you can do it if you wish. Several years ago, legislators carried this one step further in enacting TOD-deed legislation that does the same thing with real estate. If you want a TOD deed than there is a form you just fill out and it becomes effective upon your death and you record it. When you die the person who's the beneficiary simply presents a copy of the death certificate or whatever proof of death that's recorded and then the deed becomes effective. From what I know the TOD concept has been very successful and now we're trying with this bill to expand that concept to vehicles. Currently 15 states have at last count, excluding Alaska. There is no uniform act yet for this, hopefully there will be or a model act or a suggested state legislation or something; but, what we did was we got Legislative Research and they gave us copies of all the state laws and in addition, copies of the state laws for which four states have expanded this for watercraft and we also register snow machines in this state and we are looking at outboard motors as well. The Division of Motor Vehicles has been very helpful and has provided a lot of technical assistance in the drafting of this bill because they were given these laws to see how they could put together a bill for us; they did not feel it was appropriate to go with the watercraft and we can't do aircraft because that is federal and there are obligations on their titles, it's not done internally that way. HB 273 is 6-page bill so that it has conforming language with all of the other TOD language in the statute. 10:28:39 AM CHAIR STOLTZE announced that HB 273 would be held in committee.