## Facts

- Thomas J. Holmes, Sr. and Kathryn V. Holmes married in 1972 and accumulated more than $10 million in brokerage accounts and related certificated securities.
- Account titles and certificates used survivorship-style designations, including “JT TEN,” “JT TEN” defined as “joint tenants with right of survivorship and not as tenants in common,” “JTWROS,” and “Joint (WROS).”
- Kathryn died in 1999; her will named Douglas G. Beatty (her son from a prior marriage) as independent executor and left nothing to Thomas’s children.
- Thomas died about nine months later; his will named Harry Holmes II (his son from a prior marriage) as independent executor and left nothing to Kathryn’s children.
- If valid survivorship rights existed, Thomas took 100% of the property at Kathryn’s death and it later passed under Thomas’s will; if not, the property was community and each estate would control 50% under each spouse’s will.
- Texas law (Tex. Const. art. XVI, § 15, as amended in 1987) permits spouses to agree in writing that community property becomes the survivor’s property at death, and Probate Code §§ 451–462 provided statutory formalities for such arrangements at the time.

## Issues

1. Whether the brokerage account agreements and related securities certificates containing survivorship designations constituted a valid written survivorship agreement between spouses under Tex. Const. art. XVI, § 15 and Texas Probate Code §§ 451–462.
2. Whether those survivorship designations governed both the brokerage accounts and the securities certificates issued from those accounts upon the first spouse’s death.

## Decision

- The Texas Supreme Court held that the account agreements and certificates at issue created rights of survivorship.
- The Court determined that unambiguous survivorship language and commonly used survivorship abbreviations, when reflected in the parties’ written instruments, satisfied the governing constitutional and statutory requirements.
- The Court reversed and rendered in part and affirmed in part the court of appeals’ judgment, based on instrument-by-instrument application of survivorship formalities and language.
- As a result, survivorship-designated property passed to the surviving spouse at the first death and then under the survivor’s estate plan rather than under the first decedent’s will.

## Legal Principles

- Spouses may create survivorship rights in community property by a written agreement that clearly expresses intent for the property to become the survivor’s at death, consistent with Tex. Const. art. XVI, § 15.
- Under former Texas Probate Code §§ 451–462, survivorship in community property requires compliance with statutory formalities, including a written instrument reflecting survivorship intent and proper execution.
- Brokerage account agreements and ownership documents stating “joint tenants with right of survivorship” (or equivalent clear survivorship language, including defined abbreviations) can satisfy those requirements.
- Survivorship designations in account agreements can control disposition of both the account assets and securities certificates issued from the accounts, absent contrary indications in a particular instrument.

## Conclusion

The Texas Supreme Court recognized survivorship rights in spouses’ community property held in brokerage accounts and related certificates where the written instruments used clear survivorship designations, making the surviving spouse the sole owner at the first death and preventing the first decedent’s will from controlling the survivorship property.


Holmes v. Beatty, 290 S.W.3d 852 (Tex. 2009)