Informal probate

Where the statute uses it: Minn. Stat. § 524.3-301

What it means

Section 524.3-301 defines it in its first sentence and then spends the rest of the section on what the paper has to say.

An informal probate proceeding is an informal proceeding for the probate of decedent's will with or without an application for informal appointment. An informal appointment proceeding is an informal proceeding for appointment of a personal representative in testate or intestate estates. These proceedings may be combined in a single proceeding.

“Informal” is a defined word, not a description. Section 524.1-201(32) makes informal proceedings those conducted by the judge, the registrar, or the person or persons designated by the judge, for probate of a will or appointment of a personal representative under §§ 524.3-301 to 524.3-311. Applications go to the registrar and are verified by the applicant under § 524.1-310.

It is one of three routes. Section 524.3-102 provides that, except as provided in § 524.3-1201, a will is not effective to prove a transfer of property, to nominate an executor, or to exercise a power of appointment unless it is declared valid by an order of informal probate by the registrar, or by an adjudication of probate by the court in a formal proceeding or in proceedings to determine descent. The same sentence carves out an unprobated will as evidence of a devise on two stated conditions.

Where the word shows up

In the phrase people use when they mean that nobody had to go to court. Somebody did — the paperwork went to the registrar, who sits in the court. Section 524.3-302 makes the registrar’s written statement of informal probate “conclusive as to all persons until superseded by an order in a formal testacy proceeding.” That is the whole bargain: fast, documentary, and reversible by a petition.

The route also closes, and less cleanly than the three-year figure suggests. Under § 524.3-108 no informal probate or appointment proceeding may be commenced more than three years after the decedent’s death — but two categories sit outside the limit before it is stated, a proceeding to probate a will previously probated at the testator’s domicile and an appointment proceeding relating to an estate in which there has been a prior appointment; three numbered exceptions follow it; the limitations do not apply at all to proceedings to construe probated wills, determine heirs of an intestate, or determine descent; and a further proviso preserves the formal appointment of a special administrator at any time for the purposes it names, “even though the three-year period above referred to has expired.” Section 524.3-301(2)(iv) makes the applicant swear to the limit in the application either way.