Also known as: decedents net probate estate · net probate estate · probate estate
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The probate estate reduced by funeral and administration expenses, homestead allowance, family allowances, exempt property, and enforceable claims. Subject to other overriding claims and rights provided by applicable law, the net probate estate passes to the decedent's heirs by intestate succession or to the decedent's devisees by testate succession.
Demetrius Douglas created a revocable trust holding investment accounts and directed that trust property pay his debts only after his probate assets. At death his probate estate held only $40,000 after expenses and claims. Creditors holding $120,000 in judgments reached the trust assets because the net probate estate proved inadequate.
Derek Douglas's will left his surviving spouse nothing. After calculating the augmented estate the spouse's elective share remained unsatisfied. The personal representative applied Derek's net probate estate first, apportioning liability among recipients in proportion to their interests before reaching nonprobate transfers.
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Devon Drake's will poured over assets into an inter vivos trust. The probate estate consisted only of personal property valued at $25,000 after claims. Because the trust assets never entered the probate estate they passed directly to trust beneficiaries rather than through Devon Drake's net probate estate.
Dwight Dorsey died without a will. After deducting administration expenses and claims the remaining probate assets formed the net probate estate. The court distributed those assets to Dwight Dorsey's heirs determined under intestacy rules rather than to any nonprobate recipients.
The gross probate estate includes all assets subject to administration. The net probate estate subtracts funeral and administration expenses, homestead allowance, family allowances, exempt property, and enforceable claims before distribution to heirs or devisees.
Creditors may reach revocable trust assets after the settlor's death to the extent the net probate estate is inadequate to satisfy claims, costs of administration, funeral expenses, and statutory allowances.
Amounts included in the decedent's net probate estate, other than assets passing to the surviving spouse by testate or intestate succession, are applied first to satisfy any unsatisfied balance of the elective-share amount.
Property acquired by the estate after death, such as dividends or posthumous bonuses, forms part of the probate estate and reduces to net probate estate after subtraction of claims and allowances.
…rather than overrule, Trimble v. Gordon , 430 U. S. 762 (1977), decided just the Term before last, and involving a small probate estate (an automobile worth approximately $2,500) and a sad and appealing fact situation. Four Members of the Court, like the Supreme Court of Illinois, found the case “constitutionally…