What Happens in Probate Court: Steps, Costs & Timeline

What happens in probate court is a supervised, step-by-step settlement of a deceased person’s estate: a judge validates the will, appoints someone to manage the estate’s affairs, oversees payment of debts and taxes, and signs off on distributing what remains to the heirs. The process moves through distinct stages with specific filings at each one, and it usually takes somewhere between nine months and two years. Not every estate needs to go through it, and the first useful question is whether yours does at all.

When Probate Is and Isn’t Needed

Probate applies to assets the deceased owned solely in their own name with no built-in transfer mechanism. A surprising amount of property moves outside the court process entirely:

Life insurance, 401(k)s, IRAs, pensions, and annuities with a named beneficiary pay directly to that person.
Real estate or bank accounts held in joint tenancy with rights of survivorship pass automatically to the surviving owner.
Payable-on-death and transfer-on-death accounts, including vehicle titles in many states, go straight to the designated beneficiary.
Assets transferred into a revocable living trust during the person’s lifetime pass to the trust beneficiaries without court involvement.

If everything the deceased owned falls into one of those buckets, you may not need probate at all. The first job for whoever is handling things is sorting which assets will transfer on their own and which require the court.

Small Estate Shortcuts

Every state offers a simplified option for smaller estates. One version is a summary administration, which is still a court proceeding but with fewer hearings and less paperwork. The other is an affidavit process: a beneficiary signs a sworn statement, pairs it with a certified death certificate, and presents it directly to the bank or other institution holding the asset, often with no court appearance.

Dollar limits vary widely by state, roughly from $5,000 to $150,000 or more. Some states restrict affidavits to personal property and exclude real estate. Most require a waiting period, commonly 30 days after death, before the affidavit can be used, and the option disappears once anyone has opened a formal probate case. The local probate clerk’s office is the fastest way to find out what applies.

Opening the Case

When full probate is required, it starts with a petition filed by the person seeking to manage the estate. Before filing, you gather:

The original signed will. A photocopy may be accepted, but expect extra hearings to prove it is valid.
A certified death certificate from the local vital records office.
A preliminary inventory of assets, built from bank statements, deeds, investment records, and vehicle titles.
A list of heirs and beneficiaries with current addresses, including anyone who would inherit under state law if there were no will.

Real estate, businesses, artwork, and antiques often need professional appraisals establishing fair market value as of the date of death. Those valuations become part of the official record.

The petition is filed with the probate clerk in the county where the deceased lived, along with a filing fee that ranges from under $100 for simple estates to more than $1,000 for larger ones depending on jurisdiction. The petition identifies the filer, their relationship to the deceased, and whether they are asking to be appointed executor (named in the will) or administrator (no will). Under the Uniform Probate Code, adopted in some form by many states, the petition must also list the date of death, county and state of residence, and the names and addresses of the spouse, children, and other heirs.

The court then schedules an initial hearing. A judge reviews the paperwork, confirms the person seeking appointment is appropriate for the role, and checks for conflicts of interest. If everything is in order, the court issues an appointment order.

Letters of Authority

The appointment is documented as Letters Testamentary (when there is a will) or Letters of Administration (when there is not). This is your proof of authority. You present it to banks, title companies, and government agencies to access accounts and act on behalf of the estate. Without those letters, financial institutions will not release funds, and you cannot legally sell estate property.

Bond

Many courts require the personal representative to post a surety bond before issuing the letters. The bond is a financial guarantee: if the representative mismanages or steals estate funds, the bonding company covers the loss up to the bond amount, usually set to cover the full estate value. A will can waive the bond requirement, and many do, but the court can still require one if a creditor or beneficiary raises concerns.

Notifying Creditors and Paying Debts

Once you have authority to act, you have to tell creditors the estate is open. That happens two ways. You publish a notice in a local newspaper for a set number of consecutive weeks, which reaches creditors you don’t know about. You also send written notice by certified mail to every creditor you do know about: credit card companies, mortgage lenders, medical providers, anyone showing up in the deceased’s records.

Publication starts a statutory clock. Depending on the state, creditors have between three and six months to formally submit their claims. Miss the window and they generally lose the right to collect.

As claims arrive, the representative reviews each one and either accepts or rejects it. A rejected creditor can sue the estate to prove the debt. When the estate doesn’t have enough to pay everyone in full, state law sets the priority order. The exact categories differ, but the general hierarchy looks like:

Administrative costs of running the estate, including court fees and attorney fees.
Reasonable funeral and burial expenses.
Federal debts and taxes, including income taxes.
Medical expenses from the final illness.
State debts and taxes.
Everything else: credit cards, personal loans, and other unsecured debts, which share whatever remains.

No creditor in a lower category gets paid until every creditor above has been paid in full.

Handling Taxes

Taxes are where personal representatives get into the most trouble, because mistakes here can create personal liability. The first step is applying for an Employer Identification Number for the estate, which is the tax ID used on all estate returns and financial documents.¹

Three returns can come into play. The deceased’s final individual income tax return (Form 1040) covers January 1 through the date of death; a surviving spouse can elect to file jointly for that year.² Any unfiled prior-year returns also need to be prepared.

The estate itself files Form 1041, the fiduciary income tax return, if it earns $600 or more of gross income in a tax year from interest, rent, dividends, or similar sources.³ The $600 figure is set by statute and does not adjust for inflation. The return is also required if any beneficiary is a nonresident alien, regardless of income.⁴

Federal estate tax (Form 706) only hits large estates. For deaths in 2026, the filing threshold is total assets exceeding $15,000,000.⁵ The return is due nine months after the date of death, with a six-month extension available if requested before the deadline and estimated tax is paid.⁶ Most estates fall well below this line, but some states impose their own estate or inheritance taxes at much lower thresholds.

Here is the trap. A representative who distributes assets to beneficiaries before paying the estate’s tax obligations can be personally liable for the unpaid amount, even if the tax has not been formally assessed yet, if they knew or should have known about it.¹ Experienced representatives hold back enough cash to cover anticipated taxes before paying anyone else.

Final Accounting and Distribution

Before anyone inherits anything, the personal representative prepares a final accounting: a detailed report of every financial transaction since the estate opened, reconciling the initial inventory with income earned, debts paid, taxes filed, and expenses incurred. Beneficiaries receive a copy and can object if the figures look wrong or they suspect mishandling.

Once the court approves the accounting, the representative files a petition for a final distribution order. The judge checks the proposed distribution against the will’s instructions or, when there is no will, against the state’s intestacy laws, which dictate which relatives inherit and in what shares. After approval, the representative transfers property: signing over vehicle titles, recording deeds for real estate, releasing funds from estate accounts, and delivering personal property.

Beneficiaries sign receipts confirming what they received, the representative files those with the court, and the court issues a discharge order. That order closes the estate and releases the representative from further responsibility.

What Probate Costs

Every expense of probate comes out of the estate before beneficiaries see anything:

Court filing fees, from under $100 for simplified proceedings to more than $1,000 for large estates, often on a sliding scale tied to the estate’s gross value.
Attorney fees, charged either hourly or as a percentage of the estate’s gross value. In states that allow percentage-based fees, rates commonly run between 1% and 5%, declining as the estate grows.
Personal representative compensation. Roughly two-thirds of states use a “reasonable compensation” standard set by the court; the rest use statutory percentage formulas. A will can set its own arrangement.
Appraisal and professional fees for real estate, business valuations, tax preparation, and accounting.
Bond premiums, paid annually as a small percentage of the bond amount, when a bond is required.

These costs are the main reason estate planners push strategies to keep assets out of probate in the first place, including living trusts, beneficiary designations, and joint titling.

How Long It Takes

A straightforward estate with a clear will, cooperative beneficiaries, and no contested claims can close in about nine to twelve months. Larger or messier estates, especially those involving business interests, real estate in multiple states, significant tax issues, or family conflict, can run two years or longer.

The creditor notice period alone eats three to six months, since final distributions can’t happen until that window closes. Tax filings add more waiting, because the estate income tax return runs on a fiscal year and representatives often wait on IRS processing before closing.

The biggest wildcard is a will contest. Any interested party, usually a family member or someone named in a prior will, can file a formal objection. Courts won’t entertain challenges based on disappointment with the inheritance; you need specific legal grounds, most commonly:

Lack of mental capacity: the person making the will didn’t understand what they owned, who their family was, or what the will would do.
Undue influence: someone in a position of trust pressured the deceased into favoring them.
Fraud or forgery: the will was faked or the deceased was tricked into signing.
Improper execution: the will wasn’t signed or witnessed as state law requires.

A contest means more hearings, lawyers on both sides, and months or years of delay. If the court invalidates the will, it may apply an earlier valid will or distribute assets under intestacy law as if no will existed.

The representative carries a fiduciary duty throughout. A court can remove someone who wastes assets, misses deadlines, or won’t communicate with beneficiaries, and the representative can be personally liable for losses their mismanagement causes.¹

1
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 559 (2025), Survivors, Executors, and Administrators
2
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 356, Decedents
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 6012 – Persons Required to Make Returns of Income
4
Internal Revenue Service. 2025 Instructions for Form 1041
5
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026
6
Internal Revenue Service. Filing Estate and Gift Tax Returns