Free Estate Closing Packet

A closing filing made by the personal representative once the debts, taxes, and expenses have been paid and the property distributed. What that filing is varies by state: a closing statement filed with the court, a petition asking the court to settle the account and discharge the representative, or the final account itself. The prepared packet uses the instrument your state prescribes.

No. Some states require a settled account of the administration to close; some let the people entitled to the account excuse it in writing; some do not require one on the default track at all. The builder collects the account figures only where your state requires them, and offers the excusing election only where your state permits it.

Many states set an earliest-closing floor — a period measured from the first publication of the notice to creditors or from the appointment. Where your state has one, the builder states it with the statute alongside the date fields; where it has none, no floor is claimed.

Two mechanisms exist. In some states the court closes the estate by order, and discharge comes with that order. In others no order issues — the closing runs by operation of law once the filing is made and a statutory period passes. The packet states which applies in your state, with the citation.

Some states publish official closing forms; where a form is fillable this tool completes it, and where the state publishes none the closing instrument is composed to the statute's requirements. This tool prepares the document in 46 of 51 jurisdictions today; in the rest, the state publishes forms we link and explain rather than substitute.

Optionally, four IRS fiduciary forms: Form 56 (the termination notice for the fiduciary relationship), Form 4810 (request for prompt assessment), Form 5495 (request for discharge from personal liability), and — where its instructions permit it — Form 1310 (refund claim). The packet prepares the ones your answers support and states the reason wherever one is not produced.