Illinois route screening
The small estate affidavit is available where no letters of office are outstanding and the decedent's personal estate passing by intestacy or will is limited to tangible and intangible personal property not exceeding $150,000 (excluding motor vehicles registered with the Secretary of State) plus SoS-registered motor vehicles. Real property is not transferred by the affidavit.
Sources reviewed August 9, 2026. Latest primary-source re-fetch September 15, 2026.
Threshold evidence and currency
Currency: No later session-law supersession is recorded in the reviewed source set for this threshold. The edition/currentness label below is the basis for the published figure.
Controlling citation: 755 ILCS 5/25-1 — (Source: P.A. 104-346, eff. 8-15-25.).
Verbatim threshold text from that source:
the decedent's personal estate passing to any party by intestacy or under a will is limited to: (A) excluding motor vehicles registered with the Secretary of State, tangible and intangible personal property not exceeding $150,000; and (B) motor vehicles registered with the Secretary of State.
The headline limit is not a count of everything the person owned. It is a test of the property and deductions named by this procedure. Classify title and beneficiary status first; property that transfers by a valid survivorship right, beneficiary designation, or funded trust follows its own transfer path.
This reviewed route is limited to personal probate property. A house or other real property is not transferred through this screen, even when the personal-property total is below $150,000. Open the deed and the receiving court’s real-property instructions before assuming the simplified procedure resolves the whole estate.
The reviewed value basis is gross for this route. The tool does not subtract a mortgage or other lien from the amount test unless the cited rule says to do so.
No waiting-period number is published because it has not been verified to the same primary-source standard as the threshold.
Assemble the death date, will status, asset titles, beneficiary confirmations, values, enforceable liens, family facts, and any prior court filing before signing anything. Then use the court publisher’s current artifact for the selected route.
Illinois probate is heard in the Circuit Court of the county where the decedent lived; the small estate affidavit under 755 ILCS 5/25-1 avoids opening a probate estate. Filing fees are set by each circuit clerk.
If the state publishes no statewide form, that is a finding—not a missing link. Contact the Circuit Court or clerk in the proper county for its packet and current filing instructions rather than borrowing an unofficial form from another county.
This is general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Probate law varies by state and county and changes over time. Verify the current rule with the court or a licensed attorney in the relevant state.
755 ILCS 5/25-1(a-5) lets the small estate affidavit transfer personal property where no letters of office are outstanding and none are contemplated or pending "in this State or in any other jurisdiction," and where the personal estate passing by intestacy or under a will is limited to two things.
The first is the money limit: "excluding motor vehicles registered with the Secretary of State, tangible and intangible personal property not exceeding $150,000." The second is the exclusion itself — registered motor vehicles, listed as their own category (B) rather than counted toward the ceiling.
That exclusion does real work. An Illinois estate holding $140,000 of financial accounts plus two registered cars is still inside the route, because the cars never enter the $150,000 computation. The statute goes further: where the affidavit "is being used solely for a title transaction with the Secretary of State for the transfer of the decedent’s motor vehicles, it may be used to transfer those motor vehicles in accordance with subsection (b) of Section 3-114 of Illinois Vehicle Code without consideration of the value of the decedent’s personal estate."
Illinois also reaches out-of-state affiants. The sworn form requires the affiant to acknowledge that, if an out-of-state resident, they "submit myself to the jurisdiction of Illinois courts for all matters related to the preparation and use of this affidavit," and to name an Illinois agent for service of process. Using the affidavit from another state is therefore a jurisdictional act, not just a paperwork one.
Source: 755 ILCS 5/25-1, read from the enacting state’s own published code on 2026-09-17. Quoted wording is the statute’s; the surrounding explanation is this site’s reading of it and is not legal advice.
Illinois eligibility map
The Illinois threshold is one screen, not a complete legal conclusion. This map pairs the recorded ceiling with the property scope, deductions, date, and court artifact that have to be checked before relying on a likely-qualifies result.
| Question | Recorded Illinois answer | Carry into the case |
|---|---|---|
| What route is being screened? | Small estate affidavit (755 ILCS 5/25-1) | Confirm that the will, prior appointment, family facts, and asset titles fit this route. |
| What property and basis count? | personal probate property only; gross value for this route. | Keep real property, liens, beneficiary transfers, and survivorship transfers classified separately. |
| What is the amount screen? | $150,000 | Use the counted property, not a bank-balance shortcut. |
| What is the time or deadline record? | No waiting-period number verified; Illinois combines a notice-based bar date (755 ILCS 5/18-3: at least 6 months from first publication or 3 months from mailing) with an independent 2-year outer nonclaim bar from the date of death (755 ILCS 5/18-12). These run from different triggers and cannot honestly collapse into a single day count. | Keep the event that starts each clock with the date; do not combine separate periods into one number. |
| What does the cost record establish? | No single statewide amount is published here; confirm the receiving court's current schedule. | Ask the Circuit Court about local surcharges, copies, publication, bond, and later filings. |
| What does compensation use? | 755 ILCS 5/27-1 entitles the representative to reasonable compensation for services. Illinois has NO statutory percentage schedule; the amount is what the court finds reasonable in the circumstances. The relevant base is the estate accounting. | Keep the will, task log, receipts, and accounting base together; extraordinary work is separate. |
Eligibility inputs
A threshold is useful only when the amount is measured the way the source describes. Keep this table with the asset worksheet so an empty or misclassified field cannot look like a confirmed qualification.
| Input | Registry record |
|---|---|
| Threshold | $150,000 |
| Property scope | personal probate property only |
| Value basis | gross value for this route |
| Waiting period | No waiting-period number verified |
| Required extra facts | None listed in the registry |
Case-file context
A route answer is easier to use when the facts that can change it stay in the same record. These are the reviewed Illinois descriptions adjacent to this page\'s main question; they are not a substitute for the source quotations or the receiving court\'s instructions.
Illinois has no single statewide probate filing fee. The circuit clerk in each county sets fees under the Clerks of Courts Act, with amounts varying by county class, so the opening cost is county-specific.
No single statewide amount is published here; confirm the receiving court's current schedule.
755 ILCS 5/27-1 entitles the representative to reasonable compensation for services. Illinois has NO statutory percentage schedule; the amount is what the court finds reasonable in the circumstances.
755 ILCS 5/27-1 entitles the representative to reasonable compensation for services. Illinois has NO statutory percentage schedule; the amount is what the court finds reasonable in the circumstances. The relevant base is the estate accounting.
Illinois combines a notice-based bar date (755 ILCS 5/18-3: at least 6 months from first publication or 3 months from mailing) with an independent 2-year outer nonclaim bar from the date of death (755 ILCS 5/18-12). These run from different triggers and cannot honestly collapse into a single day count.
Court-material note: Illinois probate is heard in the Circuit Court of the county where the decedent lived; the small estate affidavit under 755 ILCS 5/25-1 avoids opening a probate estate. Filing fees are set by each circuit clerk.
Arithmetic illustration
The recorded Illinois ceiling is $150,000, and it is tested against personal probate property only, on a basis this site records as gross value for this route. Counted that way, $112,500 sits below the Illinois figure and $187,500 sits above it. Both are comparisons to a published number rather than legal outcomes: two estates holding the same total can land on opposite sides of this line, because what Illinois counts and how it values it are decided before the comparison is made.
| Illustrative counted amount | Comparison to the Illinois ceiling | What it does not decide |
|---|---|---|
| $112,500 | Below $150,000 | Title, liens, waiting period, appointment, or creditor duties |
| $187,500 | Above $150,000 | Whether another statutory route or court process applies |
Next evidence to collect
Official material
Illinois probate is heard in the Circuit Court of the county where the decedent lived; the small estate affidavit under 755 ILCS 5/25-1 avoids opening a probate estate. Filing fees are set by each circuit clerk.
Source trail
Each legal input links to the government source reviewed for this page. Source text can change; confirm the current rule before acting.
Reviewed source note: the decedent's personal estate passing to any party by intestacy or under a will is limited to: (A) excluding motor vehicles registered with the Secretary of State, tangible and intangible personal property not exceeding $150,000; and (B) motor vehicles registered with the Secretary of State.
What this means: The $150,000 ceiling is measured on personal property excluding motor vehicles registered with the Secretary of State; the affidavit does not transfer real property.