What Is the Estate's Personal Property Worth for Probate in Arkansas?

No. Executors in Arkansas can typically group low-value household goods into a single line on the inventory — for example, "household furnishings and personal effects" — while valuable items such as jewelry, art, and collectibles are listed individually. Each value reflects fair market value as of the date of death.

In Arkansas, the executor must file the estate inventory within 2 months of appointment. If assets are discovered later, Arkansas requires a supplemental inventory.Ark. Code § 28-49-110Verified Jul 13, 2026

Estates with personal property under $100,000 in Arkansas may qualify for Affidavit for Collection of Small Estate by Distributee, which avoids full probate.Ark. Code §§ 28-48-108(a) (executor compensation — just and reasonable, capped at 10% first $1K / 5% next $4K / 3% balance of personal property fully administered), 28-48-108(d)(2)-(3) (attorney fee schedule — 6-tier, 5% to 2%, on total market value reportable in circuit court; court adjusts if excessive or insufficient), 28-41-101 (small estate affidavit — $100K / 45 days / real property counts toward the cap / homestead and statutory allowances excluded), 28-50-101 (creditor claims — 6 months from first publication; (h) 2 years from first publication for known or reasonably ascertainable creditors; (d) 5-year absolute bar), 28-48-201 (bond — court "may require"; mandatory on written demand under (b)(1)), 28-48-206 (court may increase, decrease, or dispense with bond for good cause), 28-40-111(a)(1)(A) (mandatory publication of notice of appointment), 28-1-112 (notice requirements), 28-40-119 (court admits will and grants letters), 28-1-106 (probate referee and clerk), 28-52-103(a) (PR must file verified accounts with the court), 28-49-110 (PR-prepared inventory). Bond sections rewritten by Act 326 of 2023 (HB1448, 94th GA): § 28-48-201 "shall take" stricken and "may require" added, § 28-48-203 (sureties) repealed, and § 28-48-206's will-direction / FDIC-fiduciary / distributee-waiver dispensations stricken. Verified 2026-09-08. The official Arkansas Code (lexisnexis.com/hottopics/arcode/) is a Lexis Advance container that returns a 200 carrying zero statute text, so every section above was read from the codified 2025 Arkansas Code edition on law.justia.com under headless Chrome (Justia Cloudflare-challenges browser-UA curl); e.g. law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-28/subtitle-4/chapter-48/subchapter-1/section-28-48-108/. law.onecle.com is NOT a usable Arkansas mirror — it is frozen at “Last modified: November 15, 2016” and still serves the pre-Act-326 “the court or the clerk ... shall take a bond” text of § 28-48-201 and the repealed will-direction / FDIC-fiduciary dispensations of § 28-48-206. The Act 326 of 2023 changes were confirmed against the codified sections, never the act PDF alone, because act PDFs render stricken text identically to enacted text. CURRENCY (2026-09-08): the 2025 edition already folds in the 2025 Regular Session (the history line of § 21-6-403 carries “2025, No. 986, § 4”). The only sessions enacted after it are the 2026 Fiscal Session and the 2026 First Extraordinary Session, and the arkleg session list shows no later session. Every enacted public act of both was downloaded from arkleg.state.ar.us/Home/FTPDocument and converted with pdftotext -layout — 174 acts for 2026F and 2 for 2026S1, a boundary that is exact because a missing act number returns a 42-byte GIF rather than a PDF — and the strings 28-48-108, 28-48-201, 28-48-206, 28-50-101, 28-40-111, 28-40-119, 28-41-101, 28-1-106, 28-52-103, 21-6-403 and 21-6-416 appear in ZERO of the 176 act texts. Controls: “Arkansas Code §” matched 25 act texts and “Arkansas Code” matched 87, so the scan is real; a nonsense term matched 0.Verified Sep 8, 2026 Accurate valuation at fair market value can determine whether the estate falls below this threshold. Check eligibility with the Arkansas probate need checker.

High-value items such as art, antiques, jewelry, and collectibles typically require professional appraisals, while typical household items — furniture, electronics, appliances, clothing — can be valued using comparable sales data. Arkansas requires a formal appraisal of estate property.Ark. Code § 28-49-110Verified Jul 13, 2026

Once the inventory is filed, tangible personal property in Arkansas passes under any specific gifts in the will, then under the will's residuary clause. Without a will, it passes under Arkansas intestate succession. See who receives it with the Arkansas inheritance calculator.

Not necessarily. Items with named beneficiaries (life insurance, retirement accounts), jointly held property, and assets in a trust bypass probate. Only personal property owned solely by the deceased passes through probate in Arkansas. The Arkansas probate need checker determines which assets require probate.