In Lewisburg, where everyone knows everyone, a death in the family becomes a public file at the courthouse. A revocable living trust keeps the family's business private and the house theirs.
Probate for a Lewisburg family is the Marshall County Chancery Court, in the 1929 courthouse in the middle of the square, where the Clerk and Master opens the file at 201 Marshall County Courthouse. That brings court costs, a probate attorney's bill, and a wait of four months at the least, fixed by statute, before the estate can close, while a house in the name of the person who died cannot be sold or deeded to anyone. In a county seat of thirteen thousand, the file is public and the courthouse is where people run into each other. A funded revocable living trust hands the house to the people you name by deed, with no case and no file.
It costs nothing. You leave knowing what you need and what it costs, in writing.
Revocable living trusts · Wills · Powers of attorney · Lewisburg, Tennessee
Vanderpool Law writes the plan now, while you can still say who gets the house on Nature Lane or the acreage past the city line and who signs for it, so your Lewisburg family settles your affairs at home and nobody at the courthouse learns a thing. Thirty minutes to talk it through, no charge, no obligation.
In short: A will does not keep a Lewisburg family out of probate; it is the first paper the Clerk and Master files when the case opens in the Marshall County Chancery Court on the square. With a funded revocable living trust the house goes by deed to the people you name, no case in that court, no public file for a neighbor to read. If a stroke or a diagnosis leaves you unable to act, the trust and the powers of attorney already say who decides, so nobody petitions that same courtroom for a conservatorship. Vanderpool Law writes the trust, the pour-over will and the powers of attorney, draws the deed, and records it with the Marshall County Register of Deeds at the Courthouse Annex in Lewisburg. The fee is flat and quoted in writing after thirty minutes that cost nothing.
Lewisburg at a glance
- County
- Marshall County; Lewisburg has been the seat since the county was formed in 1836
- Probate
- Marshall County Chancery Court, Clerk and Master Cecilia West Spivy, 201 Marshall County Courthouse, on the square in Lewisburg
- Register of Deeds
- Curtis Johnson, 1103 Courthouse Annex, first floor, Lewisburg; indexed by name
- Transfer tax
- 37 cents per $100; the deed into your own revocable trust is exempt
- Home prices
- $279,990 median sold price in a tracked sample of 293 sales in ZIP 37091, six months to October 12, 2026
- Population
- 13,517, Census estimate July 1, 2025
- Deed into your trust
- Exempt from the state transfer tax; recorded by Vanderpool Law.
A living trust for a Lewisburg family
Lewisburg was laid out in 1836 to be the seat of Marshall County, and it still is: the Register, the Assessor, the Trustee and the Chancery Court all sit on or beside the square, and about 13,517 people live around them by the Census estimate of July 2025. In a town that size, the courthouse is where everyone's business gets done and where everyone eventually runs into everyone. When a mother or father dies with the house in their name alone and no plan, that is where the family goes: to the Clerk and Master at 201 Marshall County Courthouse, with the death certificate and the deed, to open a case. The court appoints someone to act, creditors get at least four months by law to come forward, a probate attorney bills for the work, and until the Chancellor signs off, nobody can sell the house, refinance it, or put it in a son's or daughter's name. The grief is yours. The file, with what Mom owned and who gets it, belongs to the public counter, and in Lewisburg the counter is three blocks from everywhere.
A revocable living trust fits the houses Lewisburg actually has. For an older home inside the Downtown Historic Overlay District, the trustee who one day sells it should know that a certificate of appropriateness comes before new windows, a fence or a coat of paint on the street side. For a new house in Spring Valley Estates, Holly Grove Meadows, Bridle Downs, King's Landing, Acorn Hill, Morgan Meadows or Southview, the trust's deed carries the lot number off the recorded plat, and the file can note whether the council has accepted the street out front, since in 2026 it found one Southview street never was. On acreage past the city limits, the trust names who decides if the land stops farming, because greenbelt rollback reaches back three years on a farm and five on open space. Deeding your house to your own revocable trust costs no transfer tax and moves nobody: you still live there, you still pay the city and county bills, and the Duck River water account stays in your name. And because the Register indexes by name alone, the names on that deed must be exactly right.
Lewisburg is about fifty minutes south of Vanderpool Law's office in Franklin, down I-65 and Highway 373, and the drive is optional. Thirty minutes on the phone or across the desk costs nothing. Bring the deed and whatever will or trust you have today; reading them is complimentary, and you leave knowing what you need and what it costs, in writing, with nothing decided until you say so. In most cases the signing happens by remote online notary, or a mobile notary comes to your kitchen table, so the whole plan is finished without leaving Marshall County. The deed into the trust goes to the Register of Deeds, Curtis Johnson, 1103 Courthouse Annex, first floor, just off the square, and we record it the week you sign. If the price is the thing standing in the way, say so: for a family going through a rough time, in certain situations, there is a trust scholarship.
Questions Lewisburg families ask about trusts
The questions Google shows for living trust searches in Marshall County, answered here for Lewisburg, where the courthouse is on the square and the file is public. The full answer is one click away on each.
What is the difference between a will and a living trust?
A will is read by the Clerk and Master on the Lewisburg square after you die; it tells the Chancery Court who gets the house, and the court then runs the case, four months at the least, with a probate attorney and a public file. A funded revocable living trust is read by nobody at the courthouse. You deed the house to yourself as trustee now, keep living in it, and the successor trustee you named signs it over to your heirs the week after the funeral. The pour-over will that comes with the trust is only the backstop for anything left outside it.
Full answer: Living trust in Tennessee: do you need one? →
Is it wise to put my house in a living trust?
For a Lewisburg house in one name, it is the only way to keep it out of the Chancery Court on the square, since Tennessee has no transfer-on-death deed. Nothing about the house changes: you stay, you can sell or refinance, the city and county tax bills still come to you, and the deed into your own revocable trust is exempt from the transfer tax. What changes is the day after you die, when a trustee signs instead of a court. In Spring Valley Estates or Bridle Downs the deed follows the recorded plat; near the square it follows the last deed, which we check line by line.
Full answer: Living trust in Tennessee: do you need one? →
Do you have to go through probate when someone dies in Tennessee?
Only for what was in that person's name alone with no one named to receive it. A Lewisburg house held by a married couple as tenants by the entirety goes to the survivor; an account with a beneficiary goes to the beneficiary; a house in a funded trust goes where the trust says. A house or acreage in one name alone goes to the Marshall County Chancery Court, and Tennessee's small-estate shortcut is closed to any estate that owns real property, so a farm outside the city limits is never a small estate.
Full answer: No estate plan? Tennessee has one for you →
How do I put my house into a trust in Tennessee?
With a deed, from you to you as trustee, recorded with Curtis Johnson at the Courthouse Annex in Lewisburg. The Register's index runs by name, not address, so the trust's name on the deed has to match the trust document exactly or the chain of title breaks. No transfer tax is due on it, and your mortgage is not disturbed. Vanderpool Law draws the deed with the trust and records it the week you sign; a trust with no deed behind it owns nothing, and the house goes to court anyway.
Full answer: Deeds in Tennessee: moving land into your trust →
How much does it cost to set up a living trust in Tennessee?
One flat fee covers the revocable trust, the pour-over will, both powers of attorney and the deed that puts the house in the trust, and you get the number in writing after a thirty-minute conversation that costs nothing. A Lewisburg plan with a house near the square and a tract out past the city line means two deeds, which the quote spells out before you decide. Nothing is added afterward, and the figure is small next to what a probate case on the square costs a family in fees, time and privacy.
Full answer: How much a living trust costs in Tennessee →
What is a healthcare power of attorney?
The paper that names the person who speaks to the doctors for you when you cannot, and says what you want them to say. Without it, a Lewisburg family that disagrees at the hospital ends up petitioning the Chancery Court on the square for a conservatorship, in public, while the parent is still alive. It is drawn with the trust and the durable power of attorney, names the people the trust names, and is drafted so the hospital accepts it without a phone call to anybody's office.
Full answer: Healthcare power of attorney in Tennessee →
The full answers, by Jim Vanderpool
Each one with the Tennessee statute it rests on.
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This page is general information about living trusts and estate planning for Lewisburg, Tennessee, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship exists until an engagement letter is signed. Probate in Sumner County and the other Tennessee counties is in the court the county assigns it to; recording is at that county's Register of Deeds. Figures are as of the date shown and change.