Registrar

Also called: Probate registrar.

Where the statute uses it: Minn. Stat. § 524.1-307

What it means

An office, not a rank. Section 524.1-201(47) defines the word by pointing at the office: the registrar is the judge of the court, or the person the court designates to perform the functions of registrar as provided in section 524.1-307. What changes when the registrar acts is not who is acting — it is what the act is. Section 524.3-102 lists an order of informal probate by the registrar and an adjudication of probate by the court in a formal proceeding as separate routes.

The acts and orders which this chapter specifies as performable by the registrar shall be performed by a judge of the court or by a person, including the court administrator, designated by the court by a written order filed and recorded in the office of the court.

The second paragraph adds to that. In addition to the acts the chapter specifies, the registrar may take acknowledgments, administer oaths, fix and approve bonds, provide information on the various methods of transferring property of decedents under the laws of this state, issue letters in informal proceedings, and perform such other acts as the court may by written order authorize as necessary or incidental to the conduct of informal proceedings. The section ends with a limit that tells you what the office is not: “The probate registrar shall not render advice calling for the exercise of such professional judgment as constitutes the practice of law.”

Where the word shows up

Wherever an estate moves without a hearing. Under § 524.3-302 the registrar issues a written statement of informal probate on making the findings § 524.3-303 requires, and only if at least 120 hours have elapsed since the decedent’s death; that informal probate “is conclusive as to all persons until superseded by an order in a formal testacy proceeding.” Section 524.3-303(a) sets seven findings and every one of them is documentary: whether the application is complete, whether it is sworn, whether the applicant appears from the application to be an interested person, whether venue is proper, whether an original, duly executed and apparently unrevoked will is in the registrar’s possession, whether any notice required by § 524.3-204 has been given, and whether it appears from the application that the time limit for original probate has not expired.

The office also has an off switch. Under § 524.3-401, during the pendency of a formal testacy proceeding the registrar shall not act on any application for informal probate of any will of the decedent, or on any application for informal appointment. One petition in a formal testacy proceeding stops the paperwork track.