Most of what adult children need to know about Arkansas estate and incapacity planning concentrates in a small set of documents and a handful of state-specific rules. The documents are conventional; Amendment 79 is the Arkansas wrinkle worth understanding.

The four documents to have in place

1. Statutory Durable Power of Attorney (A.C.A. §28-68-101 et seq.)

Arkansas adopted the Uniform Power of Attorney Act, codified at A.C.A. §28-68-101 et seq. A properly-drafted Arkansas DPOA names an agent to handle your parent’s financial affairs during incapacity.1 Key features:

Pre-Uniform-Act Arkansas POAs remain legally valid if they were valid when executed, but Arkansas banks frequently require additional certification for older documents. A new POA on the current statutory form runs $150–$400 through an attorney.

2. Advance Directive (A.C.A. §20-17-201 et seq.)

Arkansas’s Rights of the Terminally Ill or Permanently Unconscious Act provides the statutory framework for advance directives. A combined statutory form can:

Execution requires two adult witnesses (not the named proxy, not a beneficiary). The form is available free through the Arkansas Department of Health and Arkansas State Bar.2

3. Will

A will directs how assets pass at death and names a personal representative. Arkansas requires two adult witnesses; notarization makes the will “self-proving” (admissible to probate without witness testimony at the probate hearing).

4. Revocable Living Trust

A revocable living trust is the workhorse of probate avoidance. Your parent transfers assets into the trust during life, retains control as trustee, and names a successor trustee to administer assets at death without probate court involvement. Arkansas has adopted versions of the Uniform Trust Code framework; trust administration is comparatively straightforward.3

Amendment 79: the property-tax benefits every Arkansas family should claim

Arkansas Constitutional Amendment 79, adopted in 2000, provides two property-tax benefits for owner-occupied homestead properties:

Both benefits require application through the county assessor. The senior freeze is the under-claimed half: many eligible Arkansas seniors don’t apply because the county assessor’s office doesn’t actively promote it.

Probate in Arkansas

Arkansas probate is administered through county Probate Courts (a division of Circuit Court). Two main paths:

Probate-avoidance tools commonly used in Arkansas: revocable living trusts, beneficiary designations on financial accounts, joint tenancy with right of survivorship, and Transfer-on-Death deeds for real estate (Arkansas recognizes TOD deeds).

Arkansas homestead exemption

Arkansas’s creditor-protection homestead exemption (separate from Amendment 79’s property-tax benefits) protects the homestead from forced sale by most judgment creditors. The exemption is constitutional (Ark. Const. Art. IX, §3) and protects up to one-quarter acre in cities and towns or 80 acres elsewhere — with value limitations that are more generous than Alabama’s but less than Florida’s unlimited exemption.

Elder abuse and civil remedies

Arkansas’s Adult and Long-Term Care Facility Resident Maltreatment Act (A.C.A. §9-20-101 et seq.) provides for state protective services and mandatory reporting. The Department of Human Services investigates reports of abuse, neglect, exploitation, and self-neglect of vulnerable adults. Reports may be filed at 1-800-482-8049. Mandatory reporters include physicians, nurses, social workers, law enforcement, and certain others.

No state estate tax, no state inheritance tax

Arkansas has neither. The state estate tax was effectively repealed when the federal pickup credit ended in 2005; Arkansas has never had a separate inheritance tax. That leaves only the federal estate tax, which applies to estates exceeding the federal exemption (~$13.99M per individual in 2025).6

What to do this quarter