Missouri Laws 461.045 – Lineal descendant substitutes
1. Whenever a person designated as beneficiary of a nonprobate transfer is a lineal descendant of the owner, and the beneficiary is deceased at the time the beneficiary designation is made or does not survive the owner, or is treated as not surviving the owner, the nonsurviving beneficiary’s share shall belong to that beneficiary’s lineal descendants per stirpes who survive the owner, to take in place of and in substitution for the nonsurviving beneficiary, the same as the beneficiary would have taken if the beneficiary had survived. This subsection shall not apply to a beneficiary designation with the notation “no LDPS” after a beneficiary’s name or other words negating an intention to direct the transfer to the lineal descendant substitutes of a nonsurviving beneficiary.
2. A beneficiary designation may provide that the share of any beneficiary not related to the owner as provided in subsection 1 of this section, and who does not survive the owner, shall belong to that beneficiary’s lineal descendants per stirpes who survive the owner, by including after the name of the beneficiary the words “and lineal descendants per stirpes” or the abbreviation “LDPS”.
Terms Used In Missouri Laws 461.045
- Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. Source: OCC
- Intestate: Dying without leaving a will.
- Lineal descendant: Direct descendant of the same ancestors.
- Per stirpes: The legal means by which the children of a decedent, upon the death of an ancestor at a level above that of the decedent, receive by right of representation the share of the ancestor
- person: may extend and be applied to bodies politic and corporate, and to partnerships and other unincorporated associations. See Missouri Laws 1.020
- Property: includes real and personal property. See Missouri Laws 1.020
3. Lineal descendants, taking as substitutes for a beneficiary of a nonprobate transfer, if they are of the same degree of kinship to the nonsurviving beneficiary, share equally, but if they are of unequal degree, then those of more remote degree take the share of their parent by representation.
4. Whenever a nonprobate transfer is to be made to a beneficiary’s lineal descendants per stirpes, the property shall belong to such lineal descendants of the beneficiary who survive the owner, and in such proportions, as would result if the survivors were inheriting personal property of the beneficiary under the laws of Missouri and the beneficiary had died at the time of the owner’s death, intestate, unmarried, domiciled in Missouri and possessed of such property.
5. Whenever a beneficiary of a nonprobate transfer does not survive the owner and the beneficiary is a person for whom the beneficiary’s surviving lineal descendants take as substitutes under subsection 1 or 2 of this section, if there are no lineal descendants of the beneficiary who survive the owner, the beneficiary’s share shall belong to the surviving beneficiaries, or to the owner’s estate, as would be the case if transfer to the beneficiary’s lineal descendants were not required to be considered.