North Dakota route screening
North Dakota allows collection of a decedent's personal property by affidavit under N.D.C.C. § 30.1-23-01 when "the value of the entire estate subject to distribution or succession under chapters 30.1-01 through 30.1-23, wherever located, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed one hundred thousand dollars", thirty days have elapsed since death, and no application or petition for appointment of a personal representative is pending or has been granted.
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: N.D.C.C. § 30.1-23-01 — Publisher edition or amendment label not stated; verified September 15, 2026.
Verbatim threshold text from that source:
The value of the entire estate subject to distribution or succession under chapters 30.1-01 through 30.1-23, wherever located, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed one hundred thousand dollars. b. Thirty days have elapsed since the death of the decedent.
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 $100,000. 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 30 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.
Probate in North Dakota is handled by the District Court. The court system publishes statewide informal-probate self-help resources and a district-court fee page. The operative filing fee is set statewide by N.D.C.C. § 27-05.2-03; the § 30.1-23-01 affidavit is a private demand instrument, not a court filing.
The North Dakota Century Code chapter PDFs at ndlegis.gov embed subset fonts that do not extract to machine-readable text; the section bodies are therefore sourced from the North Dakota Legislative Branch's official Century Code JSON API (ndlegis.gov/api/data/century_code.json), which serves the same codified text as clean strings.
If the state publishes no statewide form, that is a finding—not a missing link. Contact the District 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.
The affidavit route, N.D.C.C. § 30.1-23-01, uses a $100,000 ceiling measured on “the value of the entire estate subject to distribution or succession under chapters 30.1-01 through 30.1-23, wherever located, less liens and encumbrances.” That is a wider base than Nebraska’s, which counts personal property only, even though both states print the same $100,000. Thirty days must have elapsed, no application or petition for appointment of a personal representative may be pending or granted in any jurisdiction, and the claiming successor must be entitled to the property.
The second route has no dollar figure at all. Under § 30.1-23-03, if the inventory and appraisal show that the entire estate less liens and encumbrances does not exceed the homestead as defined in § 47-18-01, plus exempt property under § 30.1-07-01, plus family allowance, costs and expenses of administration, reasonable funeral expenses, and reasonable and necessary medical and hospital expenses of the last illness, then the personal representative may distribute the estate immediately — without giving notice to creditors — and close it by filing a sworn closing statement under § 30.1-23-04.
That second ceiling moves with the estate rather than sitting at a fixed number, because most of its components are the estate’s own costs. An estate with substantial funeral and last-illness medical bills can qualify for summary administration at a gross value that would not have qualified had those bills been smaller. It is the kind of threshold no calculator can screen for from a single input, which is why this site does not publish a figure for it.
Closing the summary route is itself a sworn act. Section 30.1-23-04 lets a personal representative — unless the court has ordered otherwise, and except in supervised administrations — file a verified statement at any time after distribution swearing to three things: that the estate was within the § 30.1-23-03 measure, that it has been fully administered by disbursing and distributing it to the persons entitled, and that a copy of the closing statement has gone to every distributee and to every creditor or claimant known to the representative whose claim is neither paid nor barred, together with a full written account of the administration to the distributees whose interests are affected.
The appointment does not end when that statement is filed. Under § 30.1-23-04(2) the personal representative’s appointment terminates only “if no actions or proceedings involving the personal representative are pending in the court one year after the closing statement is filed.” A North Dakota summary administration therefore has a fast distribution and a slow discharge, and the year in between is the representative’s exposure, not the estate’s.
Source: N.D.C.C. §§ 30.1-23-01, 30.1-23-03, 30.1-23-04, 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.
North Dakota eligibility map
The North Dakota 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 North Dakota answer | Carry into the case |
|---|---|---|
| What route is being screened? | Collection of personal property by affidavit (N.D.C.C. § 30.1-23-01) | 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? | $100,000 | Use the counted property, not a bank-balance shortcut. |
| What is the time or deadline record? | 30 days after death; North Dakota runs multiple independently-triggered claim deadlines that cannot honestly collapse into one number: a three-month bar from the date of first publication and mailing of notice to creditors (§ 30.1-19-03(1)(a), notice under § 30.1-19-01); and an outer bar of three years after death where no notice to creditors has been given (§ 30.1-19-03(1)(b)). Publishing a single figure would mislead. | Keep the event that starts each clock with the date; do not combine separate periods into one number. |
| What does the cost record establish? | $160 is the recorded statewide amount. | Ask the District Court about local surcharges, copies, publication, bond, and later filings. |
| What does compensation use? | N.D.C.C. § 30.1-18-19 entitles a personal representative to "reasonable compensation for the personal representative's services." There is no statutory percentage schedule. A will may fix compensation, but the personal representative may renounce that provision before qualifying and take reasonable compensation instead. 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 | $100,000 |
| Property scope | personal probate property only |
| Value basis | net of enforceable liens and encumbrances |
| Waiting period | 30 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 North Dakota descriptions adjacent to this page\'s main question; they are not a substitute for the source quotations or the receiving court\'s instructions.
N.D.C.C. § 27-05.2-03(1)(a) directs the clerk of the district court to charge, in civil cases, "For filing a case for decision that is not under subdivision b or e, one hundred sixty dollars." A formal or informal probate proceeding is a case commenced for decision in district court, so the opening fee is $160. The statute lists the fee by case type rather than naming 'probate'; the § 30.1-23-01 affidavit route requires no court filing.
$160 is the recorded statewide amount.
N.D.C.C. § 30.1-18-19 entitles a personal representative to "reasonable compensation for the personal representative's services." There is no statutory percentage schedule. A will may fix compensation, but the personal representative may renounce that provision before qualifying and take reasonable compensation instead.
N.D.C.C. § 30.1-18-19 entitles a personal representative to "reasonable compensation for the personal representative's services." There is no statutory percentage schedule. A will may fix compensation, but the personal representative may renounce that provision before qualifying and take reasonable compensation instead. The relevant base is the estate accounting.
North Dakota runs multiple independently-triggered claim deadlines that cannot honestly collapse into one number: a three-month bar from the date of first publication and mailing of notice to creditors (§ 30.1-19-03(1)(a), notice under § 30.1-19-01); and an outer bar of three years after death where no notice to creditors has been given (§ 30.1-19-03(1)(b)). Publishing a single figure would mislead.
Court-material note: Probate in North Dakota is handled by the District Court. The court system publishes statewide informal-probate self-help resources and a district-court fee page. The operative filing fee is set statewide by N.D.C.C. § 27-05.2-03; the § 30.1-23-01 affidavit is a private demand instrument, not a court filing. The North Dakota Century Code chapter PDFs at ndlegis.gov embed subset fonts that do not extract to machine-readable text; the section bodies are therefore sourced from the North Dakota Legislative Branch's official Century Code JSON API (ndlegis.gov/api/data/century_code.json), which serves the same codified text as clean strings.
Arithmetic illustration
The recorded North Dakota ceiling is $100,000, 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, $75,000 sits below the North Dakota figure and $125,000 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 North Dakota counts and how it values it are decided before the comparison is made.
| Illustrative counted amount | Comparison to the North Dakota ceiling | What it does not decide |
|---|---|---|
| $75,000 | Below $100,000 | Title, liens, waiting period, appointment, or creditor duties |
| $125,000 | Above $100,000 | Whether another statutory route or court process applies |
Next evidence to collect
Official material
Probate in North Dakota is handled by the District Court. The court system publishes statewide informal-probate self-help resources and a district-court fee page. The operative filing fee is set statewide by N.D.C.C. § 27-05.2-03; the § 30.1-23-01 affidavit is a private demand instrument, not a court filing.
The North Dakota Century Code chapter PDFs at ndlegis.gov embed subset fonts that do not extract to machine-readable text; the section bodies are therefore sourced from the North Dakota Legislative Branch's official Century Code JSON API (ndlegis.gov/api/data/century_code.json), which serves the same codified text as clean strings.
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 value of the entire estate subject to distribution or succession under chapters 30.1-01 through 30.1-23, wherever located, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed one hundred thousand dollars. b. Thirty days have elapsed since the death of the decedent.
What this means: Section body served by the ndlegis.gov chapter-level PDF for N.D.C.C. ch. 30.1-23 (collection by affidavit / small estates). The section heading carries the Uniform Probate Code cross-reference '(3-1201) Collection of personal property by affidavit'.