# Georgia HB 327: Official Code of Georgia Annotated; amend various titles

Georgia HB 327, Official Code of Georgia Annotated; amend various titles, is a 2025-2026 Regular Session House bill sponsored by Chuck Efstration (Republican), Stacey Evans (Democrat), Stan Gunter (Republican) and 3 others; status signed, last action 2025-07-01 (Effective Date); PRIA reads it as touching household money (as of 2026-10-12).

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## Facts
- Bill: Georgia HB 327
- State: Georgia
- Session: 2025-2026 Regular Session
- Title: Official Code of Georgia Annotated; amend various titles
- Status: signed
- Chamber: House
- Introduced: 2025-02-06
- Last action: 2025-07-01, Effective Date
- Sponsors: Chuck Efstration (Republican), Stacey Evans (Democrat), Stan Gunter (Republican), Rob Leverett (Republican), Mary Oliver (Democrat), Matt Reeves (Republican)
- Cosponsors: 1
- Subjects: Judiciary, General Bill
- Touches household money: yes
- Roll calls: 2 (225 yes, 0 no in all)
- Economic provisions PRIA read: 49

## Summary

No summary available.

## Bill overview: provisions PRIA read

- Inheritance rights for assisted reproduction families: benefit, high. Children conceived through insemination, in vitro fertilization, or similar methods inherit as their parents' children when legally presumed legitimate. The law establishes that presumption when both spouses consent in writing. These children can inherit from the parents and their relatives when so…
- Judges can manage larger protected funds: benefit, medium. The law raises the probate judge’s fund-management limit from $15,000 to $25,000. This applies to eligible minors or adults who need a conservator but have no legally qualified conservator. Judges can receive, hold, and distribute the money without being appointed conservator or receiving a qualify…
- Adults gain access to court-managed funds: benefit, low. An adult who needs a conservator and has no legally qualified conservator can access probate-judge custody and distribution of funds. This replaces the former eligibility wording referring to an incapacitated adult. The law's custodial disbursement limit is $25,000; this is access to existing funds…
- Beneficiaries can seek trust payout changes: benefit, low. Petitions to convert a trust to a unitrust, change specified unitrust terms, or reverse conversion can go to court. They no longer must be directed specifically to superior court. A beneficiary can petition for conversion after requesting it and the trustee does not act. The court must order conver…
- Court fixes for long-term property gifts: benefit, low. Trustees, trust directors, and affected people can ask courts to repair property gifts subject to Georgia's long-term ownership limits. Repairs must closely follow the giver's stated distribution plan and stay within the applicable legal time limits. For interests created before July 1, 2018, that…
- Electronic trust documents gain legal recognition: benefit, low. Covered trust and legal records, signatures, and evidence cannot be rejected solely because they are electronic. Electronic records can satisfy writing, original-document, storage, sending, copying, and filing requirements when accurate and accessible. Electronic signatures can satisfy signature re…
- Estate beneficiaries receive notice within six months: benefit, low. Estate representatives must tell will beneficiaries that the will was accepted and provide their name and mailing address. Notice is due within six months after the first representative qualifies. Beneficiaries can waive notice in writing, and a beneficiary who is the representative needs no notice…
- Heirs receive yearly estate financial information: benefit, low. After filing an annual return, representatives must mail a copy without supporting vouchers to intestate heirs and beneficiaries receiving the estate's remainder. Other gift beneficiaries receive the relevant portion or a written account; people whose estate interests are satisfied are excluded. An…
- Legal papers can reach foreign trust directors: benefit, low. Foreign entities acting as trust directors in Georgia consent to receiving legal papers through Georgia’s Secretary of State. This applies to lawsuits based on their actions or failures to act. An entity can instead name an in-state agent and file that designation with the Secretary of State.
- More exceptions for long-term trust powers: benefit, low. Georgia's rule limiting long-term property interests expressly exempts contracts to make or not revoke a will or trust. Qualifying fiduciary powers to direct property management are also exempt. The exception also covers a trust director's authority to direct principal payments before a trust ends.…
- More grounds for removing harmful trustees: benefit, low. Interested people can petition to remove trustees without the former express good-cause filing requirement; courts can also start removal themselves. Removal still requires authority in the trust document or a legal ground. Grounds include serious breaches, harmful conflicts among trustees, unfitne…
- More ways to resolve inheritance disputes: benefit, low. People required to distribute property to heirs can seek an heirship ruling, as can qualifying child-support recipients concerning an obligor's estate. Petitions can go to the estate's probate court or the same county's superior court. Contested year's-support cases must stay in probate court. Most…
- Protection for qualifying remotely signed wills: benefit, low. The law protects wills and will amendments signed or witnessed under Governor’s Executive Order 04.09.20.01. They cannot be ruled invalid solely because the person making the will was not physically present during signing or witnessing. Other grounds for challenging the document remain unaffected.
- Trust beneficiaries gain representation safeguards: benefit, low. A trust donor cannot represent and bind a beneficiary in specified trust changes or termination matters. A qualified beneficiary entitled to receive property at termination can represent later beneficiaries only without a conflict over the matter. An affected person or someone claiming authority to…
- Charitable trusts gain representation and court options: benefit, low. The Georgia Attorney General has qualified-beneficiary rights for charitable trusts. Those rights also cover noncharitable trusts when an unidentifiable class of charitable beneficiaries meets the statutory beneficiary test. Named charities eligible for trust income or principal gain those rights w…
- More people can manage estates and trusts: benefit, low. Qualified individuals can administer estates of Georgia residents regardless of citizenship or where they live. Eligible nonresidents can also serve as Georgia trustees, and individuals can serve as trust directors regardless of citizenship or residency. An organization serving as trust director mu…
- More ways to honor charitable donors: benefit, low. People who create or donate to a trust with charitable and noncharitable purposes can sue to enforce its charitable purposes. Institutions can also consider donors’ personal values when managing and investing institutional funds. Those values can include social, political, religious, environmental,…
- Stronger care rules for charitable funds: benefit, low. Institutional fund managers must act in good faith and use prudent care, skill, and caution, considering relevant special circumstances. Institutions must also use reasonable care when deciding whether to spend or save endowment assets, while respecting donor intent. A donor's authorized power-of-a…
- Inheritance rights control wrongful death recovery: cost, high. A child born outside marriage can recover for a parent's wrongful death only with inheritance rights through that parent. Those rights must exist under Georgia's inheritance law for children born outside marriage. The law does not set a recovery amount.
- Donors face creditor claims against trusts: cost, low. A living donor's creditors can reach property in a trust that donor can revoke. For an irrevocable trust, creditors or assignees can reach the maximum amount distributable to or for the donor. After death, estate creditors can reach specified trust property when the probate estate is inadequate, in…
- Trust claim clock starts when sent: cost, low. Beneficiaries must start breach-of-trust cases within two years after an adequate written report is sent, rather than received. The report must give enough information to recognize or reasonably investigate the claim. Without an adequate report, the deadline remains six years after discovery or whe…
- Trust power rules lose statutory provisions: cost, low. The law repeals the section concerning powers granted by qualified trust beneficiaries. It also removes an express power-of-attorney rule reference for agents exercising a trustee's powers. The supplied text does not identify the repealed powers or state what standard replaces the removed reference.
- Georgia early care agency gains data access: cost, low. Georgia’s Department of Early Care and Learning can use personal information otherwise covered by an information-protection rule. The exception applies only to purposes authorized in Chapter 1A of Title 20.
- Licensed doctors required for fertility procedures: cost, low. Only properly licensed physicians or surgeons can perform insemination, in vitro fertilization, or similar assisted reproduction on female patients. Unauthorized performance or attempted performance is a felony. The penalty is one to five years in prison.
- More paths to paternal family inheritance: mixed, high. Children born outside marriage and paternal relatives can establish inheritance rights through accepted paternity orders, acknowledgments, and birth-certificate evidence. Qualifying embryo-relinquishment arrangements or genetic tests showing at least 97% probability of paternity create a presumptio…
- Creditors gain simpler estate claim notices: mixed, low. Creditors can submit estate claims in writing without a special form. Notices must identify the debt, principal balance, and applicable lawful interest or charges. An ordinary invoice or account statement counts when received by the representative, filed with probate court, or sent through authoriz…
- Estate managers gain broader borrowing powers: mixed, low. Estate and trust fiduciaries can borrow for any purpose, not just to pay debts, taxes, or other charges. They can choose interest rates, repayment dates, renewals, and security terms they consider advisable. They can pledge estate or trust property to secure the loan. This expands financing options…
- Estate managers gain payment and delegation options: mixed, low. An estate representative's pay can follow a written agreement with the deceased person or a qualifying agreement signed after death. After death, all affected will beneficiaries or all intestate heirs must sign; a duly acting guardian or conservator can sign for someone unable to act legally. Witho…
- Estates can skip some bond requirements: mixed, low. Qualifying banks and trust companies can serve as intestate estate representatives or temporary administrators without posting a bond. Their combined capital, surplus, and undivided profits must total at least $400,000, and the governing document cannot require a bond. All heirs of an estate withou…
- Heirs can waive estate reporting duties: mixed, low. All heirs or will beneficiaries can consent in writing for the court to excuse an estate inventory. Once excused, the representative also need not send inventory copies, regardless of when consent was signed. An individual can waive annual-return delivery in writing and revoke that waiver in writin…
- Inheritance DNA costs and sample safeguards: mixed, low. The person requesting DNA testing usually pays for sampling, testing, reports, and removal and return of remains. After a hearing opportunity, courts can shift testing costs for bad faith or unreasonable failure to cooperate. Courts can also divide reasonable lawyer, expert, guardian ad litem, and…
- Inheritance DNA testing gains new boundaries: mixed, low. Heirship DNA testing does not require written consent obtained before the deceased person's death. Court-ordered removal and return of remains bypass specified permits and disturbance bans, but abandoned burial grounds retain special safeguards. Courts cannot order a party's DNA test when adoption…
- Inheritance testing orders carry enforcement penalties: mixed, low. Courts can enforce DNA-testing orders in inheritance proceedings through contempt. If the person requesting testing refuses to comply, the court can dismiss or strike that person’s court filings. Before doing so, the court must give the parties a reasonable chance to be heard.
- Limits on beneficiaries controlling trust payments: mixed, low. Beneficiaries serving as trustees or trust directors, but not settlors or donors, generally need an ascertainable standard for self-payments. They face limits on shifting income and principal and cannot use distributions to meet their own legal support obligations. Express trust terms and specified…
- Marital trusts change donor attribution after death: mixed, low. After the donor's spouse dies, property in a marital trust created during life is treated as contributed by that spouse. The spouse becomes the donor of that property for these rules. Property added after the spouse's death is excluded. The rule uses the marriage relationship when the trust was cre…
- Trust creditor shields exclude self-funded property: mixed, low. Creditors and transferees cannot force a trustee or trust director to make a payment left to that person's discretion. This protection applies even with a distribution standard or when that decision-maker is also a beneficiary. It does not protect the part the beneficiary contributed. A spendthrift…
- Trust director lawsuits change on both sides: mixed, low. The law removes the express rule giving trust directors the same breach-of-trust defenses as similarly situated trustees. It also removes the rule making acceptance of a director role an express submission to Georgia court authority. People bringing claims may need another basis for Georgia courts…
- Trust directors face specific oversight rules: mixed, low. Trust directors follow trustee rules for appointment, acceptance, pay, resignation, removal, and accounting. But the law removes the broad rule that references to trustees include trust directors whenever context allows. A trust power is excluded from the specified article only when the trust docum…
- Trust managers can guarantee beneficiary debts: mixed, low. A fiduciary—a person or company managing assets for others—can guarantee a beneficiary’s debt or another obligation for that beneficiary’s benefit. The fiduciary can act with or without payment and choose the terms. This can help the beneficiary obtain credit, but can put trust or estate assets at…
- Trust powerholders gain control over rights: mixed, low. A power of appointment lets its holder choose who receives property. A trustee or trust director's fiduciary duties do not govern using, or declining to use, that power over the same property. Someone exercising that power outside a fiduciary role can also set when beneficiaries receive specified r…
- Trust reports change who receives information: mixed, low. Irrevocable trust reports go to beneficiaries entitled or eligible for discretionary income or principal payments during the reporting period. Reports are due at least annually, at trust termination, and when a trustee changes. People able to revoke the trust also receive accountings, and successor…
- Trust settlements bind parties but face limits: mixed, low. Trust terms include authorized later changes, court orders, out-of-court settlements, and terms established by applicable law. A valid out-of-court settlement binds its parties, including people represented by someone authorized to bind them. Its terms must be ones a court can approve and cannot vi…
- Trust transfers retain debts and tax limits: mixed, low. Georgia's rules for moving assets into a second trust apply to trusts mainly administered in Georgia or governed by Georgia law. When a living donor's original trust is not a grantor trust, the second trust faces limits on powers to direct property. A power not exempt from federal tax Section 674(a…
- Updated rules for assisted reproduction families: mixed, low. Birth-record rules now cover in vitro fertilization and similar methods, alongside artificial insemination, when a married woman’s husband consents. Rules for overturning paternity decisions also cover these methods. Physicians and surgeons get protection from civil claims over procedure results wh…
- Clearer rules for replacing trust managers: mixed, low. A trustee vacancy can remain open if another trustee serves, unless the trust document requires a replacement. Replacement priority follows the named successor, the document's appointment process, unanimous qualified-beneficiary agreement, then court appointment. Courts can appoint extra trustees o…
- Estate claims allow limited AIDS record disclosure: mixed, low. Relevant AIDS-confidential information can be disclosed for specified insurance or benefit claims pursued by estate representatives, beneficiaries, heirs, successors, or assigns. Disclosure also covers specified court cases involving the person's care, condition, injuries, damages, or death, and co…
- Updated legal choice rules for deeds: mixed, low. The law changes which legal election principles apply to deeds. It replaces the former references with Code Sections 53-4-70 and 53-4-71. The supplied text does not explain how those choices affect a party's property rights or money.
- Personal property lists stay separate from wills: mixed, low. A written list directing gifts of tangible personal property remains separate from the person's will. It is neither the will nor part of it. This distinction applies to lists that meet Code Section 53-4-5(b).
- Corporate trust managers gain financial flexibility: mixed, low. Corporate fiduciaries can borrow from their own banking departments for any purpose and choose the loan terms. They can pledge estate or trust property to secure those loans, putting that property at risk. Without court approval, they can exchange or convert their own securities and keep the replac…

## Sponsors and cosponsors

- Sponsor: Chuck Efstration (Republican), House
- Sponsor: Stacey Evans (Democrat), House
- Sponsor: Stan Gunter (Republican), House
- Sponsor: Rob Leverett (Republican), House
- Sponsor: Mary Oliver (Democrat), House
- Sponsor: Matt Reeves (Republican), House
- Cosponsor: John F. Kennedy (Republican), Senate

## Roll call votes

| Date | Chamber | Motion | Result | Yes | No | Other |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2025-03-31 | Senate | PASSAGE | pass | 49 | 0 | 5 |
| 2025-03-03 | House | PASSAGE | pass | 176 | 0 | 2 |

## Actions (17)

- 2025-07-01: Effective Date
- 2025-05-14: House Date Signed by Governor (House)
- 2025-05-14: Act 310
- 2025-04-09: House Sent to Governor (House)
- 2025-03-31: Senate Tabled (Senate)
- 2025-03-31: Senate Taken from Table (Senate)
- 2025-03-31: Senate Third Read (Senate)
- 2025-03-31: Senate Passed/Adopted (Senate)
- 2025-03-21: Senate Read Second Time (Senate)
- 2025-03-20: Senate Committee Favorably Reported (Senate)
- 2025-03-04: Senate Read and Referred (Senate)
- 2025-03-03: House Third Readers (House)
- 2025-03-03: House Passed/Adopted By Substitute (House)
- 2025-02-21: House Committee Favorably Reported By Substitute (House)
- 2025-02-11: House Second Readers (House)
- 2025-02-10: House First Readers (House)
- 2025-02-06: House Hopper (House)

## Bill text

- HB 327/AP* (v6): [PDF](https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/legislation/document/20252026/238505)

## Related bills

- SB 160: Reckless Stunt Driving; a motor vehicle involved in a second offense of reckless stunt driving; replace the forfeiture penalty (signed)
- SB 384: Motor Vehicle; optional five-year motor vehicle registration and revalidation for certain motor vehicles; provide (signed)
- SB 76: License Plates; specialty license plate benefitting the Georgia Veterans Service Foundation; establish (signed)
- SB 406: "Georgia Property Owners' Bill of Rights Act"; enact (signed)
- HB 1391: Specialty license plates; honor public safety officers; establish (signed)
- HB 1344: Georgia Insurance Affordability and Claims Integrity Act; enact (signed)

## Sources
- [HB 327/AP* (v6) (PDF)](https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/legislation/document/20252026/238505)

## Related
- [SB 160: Reckless Stunt Driving; a motor vehicle involved in a second offense of reckles…](https://policyrisk.com/state-bill/GA-SB160-2025-2026)
- [SB 384: Motor Vehicle; optional five-year motor vehicle registration and revalidation f…](https://policyrisk.com/state-bill/GA-SB384-2025-2026)
- [SB 76: License Plates; specialty license plate benefitting the Georgia Veterans Servic…](https://policyrisk.com/state-bill/GA-SB76-2025-2026)
- [SB 406: "Georgia Property Owners' Bill of Rights Act"; enact](https://policyrisk.com/state-bill/GA-SB406-2025-2026)
- [HB 1391: Specialty license plates; honor public safety officers; establish](https://policyrisk.com/state-bill/GA-HB1391-2025-2026)
- [HB 1344: Georgia Insurance Affordability and Claims Integrity Act; enact](https://policyrisk.com/state-bill/GA-HB1344-2025-2026)
- [Georgia bills](https://policyrisk.com/states/georgia/bills)
- [Georgia state hub](https://policyrisk.com/states/georgia)
- [All state legislation](https://policyrisk.com/state-bills)

Source: PRIA, https://policyrisk.com/state-bill/GA-HB327-2025-2026 (as of 2026-10-12).