Michigan route screening
This limit is set by the date of death, not by the current year. $51,000 applies to a death in 2025. The screening tool below will not return a figure until a date of death is entered, because measuring an older estate against today’s ceiling would give a confident wrong answer. Basis: MCL 700.1210 annual cost-of-living adjustment certified by the Michigan Department of Treasury.
After 28 days, a successor may use a sworn statement (MCL 700.3983) or a court-order assignment (MCL 700.3982) where the estate has no real property, is within the annually adjusted net-of-liens ceiling, and no personal-representative application or appointment is pending or granted. The ceiling is $50,000 base (as amended by 2024 PA 1) adjusted annually for cost of living under MCL 700.1210; the operative figure for calendar-year 2025 deaths is $51,000 (Michigan Department of Treasury certified notice, Table B).
Sources reviewed August 9, 2026. Latest primary-source re-fetch September 15, 2026.
Threshold evidence and currency
Currency: This limit is date-dependent. The current published band is $51,000 for 2025-01-01; earlier dates use the bands below. No later session-law supersession is identified in the reviewed record.
Controlling citation: Mich. Dep't of Treasury, EPIC Cost-of-Living Adjustments (MCL 700.1210), Table B, calendar year 2025 (certified Jan. 31, 2025) — January 31, 2025.
Verbatim threshold text from that source:
the 2023 cost-of-living adjustment factor for the 2025 calendar year is 1.029
The Michigan ceiling is not one timeless number. It is republished on a schedule, and the figure that governs an estate is the one in force on the day the person died — not the one in force today. Measuring an older estate against the current ceiling can report that it qualifies when the operative limit was lower, so the bands are set out in full below.
| Date of death | Ceiling |
|---|---|
| Deaths from January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2025 | $51,000 |
How the figure is set: MCL 700.1210 annual cost-of-living adjustment certified by the Michigan Department of Treasury.
For a death before 2025 use the Treasury notice certified for that year.
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 $51,000. Open the deed and the receiving court’s real-property instructions before assuming the simplified procedure resolves the whole estate.
The reviewed value basis subtracts enforceable liens and encumbrances. Enter the asset value and the lien separately. An unsecured bill is not a lien against an asset unless this state separately requires it as an input.
The reviewed route requires 28 days after death before the affidavit or petition can be used. That is a minimum timing condition, not a promise that the institution or court completes the transfer on that day.
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.
Michigan publishes statewide SCAO forms for both small-estate routes. The forms repeat that the statutory base is adjusted, but do not print an operative calendar-year ceiling.
No stable HTTP-200 human-readable statewide Probate Court directory page was located; direct court-form URLs were verified.
If the state publishes no statewide form, that is a finding—not a missing link. Contact the Probate 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.
Michigan eligibility map
The Michigan 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 Michigan answer | Carry into the case |
|---|---|---|
| What route is being screened? | Collection of personal property by sworn statement | Confirm that the will, prior appointment, family facts, and asset titles fit this route. |
| What property and basis count? | personal probate property only; net of enforceable liens and encumbrances. | Keep real property, liens, beneficiary transfers, and survivorship transfers classified separately. |
| What is the amount screen? | $51,000 for deaths from January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2025 | Use the counted property, not a bank-balance shortcut. |
| What is the time or deadline record? | 28 days after death; Michigan has distinct deadlines: publication, later notice to known creditors, and a three-year death-based outer bar when statutory notice was not given, plus separate post-death claim rules. One days value would misstate the framework. | Keep the event that starts each clock with the date; do not combine separate periods into one number. |
| What does the cost record establish? | $150 is the recorded statewide amount. | Ask the Probate Court about local surcharges, copies, publication, bond, and later filings. |
| What does compensation use? | Michigan uses reasonable compensation rather than a percentage schedule. A will provision may be renounced before qualifying when no compensation contract exists; a written compensation contract with the decedent binds the representative. 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 | $51,000 for deaths from January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2025 |
| Property scope | personal probate property only |
| Value basis | net of enforceable liens and encumbrances |
| Waiting period | 28 days after death |
| 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 Michigan descriptions adjacent to this page\'s main question; they are not a substitute for the source quotations or the receiving court\'s instructions.
Commencing a probate-court civil action or proceeding generally costs $150; commencing the MCL 700.3982 assignment proceeding costs $25. MCL 600.871 separately imposes a statewide, value-based decedent-estate fee due by closing or within one year; it is not an opening filing fee.
$150 is the recorded statewide amount.
Michigan uses reasonable compensation rather than a percentage schedule. A will provision may be renounced before qualifying when no compensation contract exists; a written compensation contract with the decedent binds the representative.
Michigan uses reasonable compensation rather than a percentage schedule. A will provision may be renounced before qualifying when no compensation contract exists; a written compensation contract with the decedent binds the representative. The relevant base is the estate accounting.
Michigan has distinct deadlines: publication, later notice to known creditors, and a three-year death-based outer bar when statutory notice was not given, plus separate post-death claim rules. One days value would misstate the framework.
Court-material note: Michigan publishes statewide SCAO forms for both small-estate routes. The forms repeat that the statutory base is adjusted, but do not print an operative calendar-year ceiling. No stable HTTP-200 human-readable statewide Probate Court directory page was located; direct court-form URLs were verified.
Arithmetic illustration
The recorded Michigan ceiling is $51,000 for deaths from January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2025, and it is tested against personal probate property only, on a basis this site records as net of enforceable liens and encumbrances. Counted that way, $38,300 sits below the Michigan figure and $63,800 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 Michigan counts and how it values it are decided before the comparison is made.
| Illustrative counted amount | Comparison to the Michigan ceiling | What it does not decide |
|---|---|---|
| $38,300 | Below $51,000 for deaths from January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2025 | Title, liens, waiting period, appointment, or creditor duties |
| $63,800 | Above $51,000 for deaths from January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2025 | Whether another statutory route or court process applies |
Next evidence to collect
Official material
Michigan publishes statewide SCAO forms for both small-estate routes. The forms repeat that the statutory base is adjusted, but do not print an operative calendar-year ceiling.
No stable HTTP-200 human-readable statewide Probate Court directory page was located; direct court-form URLs were verified.
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 2023 cost-of-living adjustment factor for the 2025 calendar year is 1.029
What this means: This is the official annual Treasury publication that MCL 700.1210(3) requires. Table B lists the operative adjusted dollar amounts for MCL 700.3982(1)&(2) and MCL 700.3983 as $51,000 for decedents dying in calendar year 2025 (base $50,000 as amended by 2024 PA 1, × the 2023 cost-of-living adjustment factor of 1.029, rounded to the nearest $1,000). Reached only after the Treasury search endpoint's HTTP 403 was bypassed by locating the notice PDF through the Treasury 'reports-archive/archived-economic-reports/estates' page.
Reviewed source note: After 28 days after a decedent's death, a person indebted to the decedent or having possession of tangible personal property or an instrument evidencing a debt, obligation, stock, or chose in action belonging to the decedent shall pay the indebtedness or deliver the tangible personal property or the instrument to a person claiming to be the decedent's successor
What this means: The displayed $50,000 is adjusted under MCL 700.1210; this dossier does not publish it as the current threshold.