Get Hennepin County Application For Informal Probate

Your personal representative starts a probate proceeding by filing an application or petition with the probate court in the county where you lived at the time of your death. Probate proceedings in Minnesota may be either formal or informal and generally must be initiated within three years after the decedent's death.

First, if the deceased person left no real estate and all the property in the estate is worth no more than $25,000 (minus the cost of a vehicle), any interested person may offer to serve as voluntary personal representative (executor).

Courts recognize a testate will as legally binding and see to it that your estate is distributed exactly as you specified. If you die intestate, on the other hand, there is no valid will for the court to honor. Either no will was submitted to the court, or the version provided was outdated or otherwise unacceptable.

Informal probate allows the estate to be probated through an administrative process without any court involvement and no court hearings. The estate is opened by an application and can be opened the day that the application is filed, or within a few days.

Informal probate is a process in which a personal representative acts independently to distribute an estate's assets, with minor oversight by a court registrar instead of a judge. ... Most probate proceedings in Minnesota are informal.

Informal probate is an administrative proceeding and is processed by a Massachusetts Uniform Probate Code (MUPC) Magistrate instead of a judge. Hearings aren't required or allowed by the court. ... A magistrate can issue an informal order as early as 7 days after the decedent's (the person who has died) death.

The length of the probate process will vary greatly depending on things such as the size and complexity of the estate. More often than not, however, probate will wrap up in about six months to one year. Some estates, however, can take years to go through probate.

Informal probate is handled by a magistrate, not a judge. There are no hearings. It is a simple, straightforward, expedited process. In fact, informal probate can be completed in as little as seven days after a loved one's death.