Tennessee route screening
Tennessee's small-estate procedure was REPLACED by 2023 Public Chapter 297, which deleted Title 30, Chapter 4 in full and substituted "The Small Estate Probate Act." The former clerk-certified affidavit route (2022 Pub. Ch. 665) is superseded. Under the current Act a "small estate" is a probate estate in which the value of the probate property (personal property only) does not exceed fifty thousand dollars ($50,000). After the expiration of forty-five (45) days from the decedent's death — provided no petition for appointment of a personal representative has been filed — one or more competent adult heirs (or, if testate, the named executor) file a PETITION with the court for the issuance of "limited letters of administration of a small estate" (or limited letters testamentary). The court, not the clerk by affidavit, issues the limited letters; the recipient is the personal representative, a bond equal to the estate value may be required, and limited letters expire about one year after issuance. Upon good cause shown the court may waive the 45-day wait. If assets discovered during administration exceed $50,000, the matter may be converted to full probate.
Sources reviewed August 9, 2026. Latest primary-source re-fetch September 15, 2026.
Threshold evidence and currency
Currency: Small-estate procedure CORRECTED: 2023 Pub. Ch. 297 replaced the affidavit route with a court petition for limited letters of administration/testamentary of a small estate. Threshold ($50,000) and 45-day wait are unchanged (with a new good-cause waiver of the wait). The full codified chapter text remains Lexis-locked, but the enacted public chapter is the controlling primary source.
Controlling citation: Tenn. Pub. Ch. 297 (2023) (HB 337; Tenn. Code Ann. tit. 30, ch. 4) — PUBLIC CHAPTER NO. 297.
Verbatim threshold text from that source:
Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 30, Chapter 4, is amended by deleting the chapter and substituting: 30-4-101. This chapter is known and may be cited as "The Small Estate Probate Act."
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 $50,000. 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.
The reviewed route requires 45 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 jurisdiction in Tennessee sits in Chancery Court in most counties, but in Davidson and Shelby Counties a dedicated Probate Court exists. There is no statewide small-estate form or statewide filing-fee schedule; under the 2023 Small Estate Probate Act the petition for limited letters is filed with, and the fee set by, the county court clerk (Tenn. Code Ann. § 8-21-401).
If the state publishes no statewide form, that is a finding—not a missing link. Contact the Chancery Court (Probate Court in Davidson and Shelby Counties) 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.
Tennessee’s small-estate provisions sit in Title 30, Chapter 4 of the Tennessee Code Annotated. Unlike the uniform-code states covered elsewhere on this site, Tennessee has no government-hosted copy of that chapter: the state’s advertised free access point is a LexisNexis landing page that hands off to a JavaScript application.
A dollar ceiling is exactly the kind of figure that moves by amendment and then circulates unchanged in secondary summaries for years afterwards. Publishing one that could not be read from the code would give a stale number the appearance of a verified one.
The state’s own self-help material was checked as an alternative on the date below; the Tennessee courts self-help pages that responded carried general orientation rather than the chapter text, so they cannot substitute for the provision.
For a specific estate, the clerk of the probate court in the county of venue can confirm both the current ceiling and whether the estate’s asset mix qualifies — which is the part a published ceiling would not answer anyway.
Authority that would settle this: Tenn. Code Ann. tit. 30, ch. 4 (small estates). The access attempt described above was made on 2026-09-17. Nothing is quoted from it, because nothing could be read from it; a figure restated from a secondary summary would look like a sourced answer without being one.
Tennessee eligibility map
The Tennessee 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 Tennessee answer | Carry into the case |
|---|---|---|
| What route is being screened? | Small estate probate — petition for limited letters of administration/testamentary (Tenn. Code Ann. tit. 30, ch. 4, "The Small Estate Probate Act," enacted by 2023 Pub. Ch. 297) | 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? | $50,000 | Use the counted property, not a bank-balance shortcut. |
| What is the time or deadline record? | 45 days after death; Tennessee runs multiple separately-triggered claim deadlines that cannot be collapsed: a four-month period from first publication of the notice to creditors and an actual-notice period (Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 30-2-306, 30-2-307), the ultimate bar (§ 30-2-310(a)-(b)), and the TennCare-specific limits (§ 30-2-310(c)). Only the TennCare framework (Pub. Ch. 102 (2021), which merely ADDS § 30-2-310(c)) was machine-harvestable; the general publication/actual-notice bar in §§ 30-2-306/307/310(a)-(b) lives in the Lexis-locked code and no enacted Public Chapter restating it was located across GA 100–114. | 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 Chancery Court (Probate Court in Davidson and Shelby Counties) about local surcharges, copies, publication, bond, and later filings. |
| What does compensation use? | No compensation amount is recorded here: Tennessee has no statutory percentage schedule; the personal representative receives reasonable compensation fixed by the court. The section named in the task, Tenn. Code Ann. § 30-2-323, was verified (Justia discovery) to govern 'advances for property maintenance expenses' (Acts 1997, ch. 426), NOT compensation — so it must not be cited for the compensation standard. No enacted Public Chapter restating a Tennessee PR-compensation standard was located (GA 100–114), and the codified provisions are LexisNexis-only, so the operative standard is not quoted from a verified primary source and is recorded as UNKNOWN. | 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 | $50,000 |
| Property scope | personal probate property only |
| Value basis | gross value for this route |
| Waiting period | 45 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 Tennessee descriptions adjacent to this page\'s main question; they are not a substitute for the source quotations or the receiving court\'s instructions.
Tennessee probate/small-estate filing fees are county-clerk fees under Tenn. Code Ann. § 8-21-401 and vary by county; the Small Estates Act itself only cross-references that fee authority rather than stating a dollar amount.
No single statewide amount is published here; confirm the receiving court's current schedule.
Tennessee has no statutory percentage schedule; the personal representative receives reasonable compensation fixed by the court. The section named in the task, Tenn. Code Ann. § 30-2-323, was verified (Justia discovery) to govern 'advances for property maintenance expenses' (Acts 1997, ch. 426), NOT compensation — so it must not be cited for the compensation standard. No enacted Public Chapter restating a Tennessee PR-compensation standard was located (GA 100–114), and the codified provisions are LexisNexis-only, so the operative standard is not quoted from a verified primary source and is recorded as UNKNOWN.
No compensation amount is recorded here: Tennessee has no statutory percentage schedule; the personal representative receives reasonable compensation fixed by the court. The section named in the task, Tenn. Code Ann. § 30-2-323, was verified (Justia discovery) to govern 'advances for property maintenance expenses' (Acts 1997, ch. 426), NOT compensation — so it must not be cited for the compensation standard. No enacted Public Chapter restating a Tennessee PR-compensation standard was located (GA 100–114), and the codified provisions are LexisNexis-only, so the operative standard is not quoted from a verified primary source and is recorded as UNKNOWN.
Tennessee runs multiple separately-triggered claim deadlines that cannot be collapsed: a four-month period from first publication of the notice to creditors and an actual-notice period (Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 30-2-306, 30-2-307), the ultimate bar (§ 30-2-310(a)-(b)), and the TennCare-specific limits (§ 30-2-310(c)). Only the TennCare framework (Pub. Ch. 102 (2021), which merely ADDS § 30-2-310(c)) was machine-harvestable; the general publication/actual-notice bar in §§ 30-2-306/307/310(a)-(b) lives in the Lexis-locked code and no enacted Public Chapter restating it was located across GA 100–114.
Court-material note: Probate jurisdiction in Tennessee sits in Chancery Court in most counties, but in Davidson and Shelby Counties a dedicated Probate Court exists. There is no statewide small-estate form or statewide filing-fee schedule; under the 2023 Small Estate Probate Act the petition for limited letters is filed with, and the fee set by, the county court clerk (Tenn. Code Ann. § 8-21-401).
Arithmetic illustration
The recorded Tennessee ceiling is $50,000, and it is tested against personal probate property only, on a basis this site records as gross value for this route. Counted that way, $37,500 sits below the Tennessee figure and $62,500 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 Tennessee counts and how it values it are decided before the comparison is made.
| Illustrative counted amount | Comparison to the Tennessee ceiling | What it does not decide |
|---|---|---|
| $37,500 | Below $50,000 | Title, liens, waiting period, appointment, or creditor duties |
| $62,500 | Above $50,000 | Whether another statutory route or court process applies |
Next evidence to collect
Official material
Probate jurisdiction in Tennessee sits in Chancery Court in most counties, but in Davidson and Shelby Counties a dedicated Probate Court exists. There is no statewide small-estate form or statewide filing-fee schedule; under the 2023 Small Estate Probate Act the petition for limited letters is filed with, and the fee set by, the county court clerk (Tenn. Code Ann. § 8-21-401).
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: Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 30, Chapter 4, is amended by deleting the chapter and substituting: 30-4-101. This chapter is known and may be cited as "The Small Estate Probate Act."
What this means: Enacted session law (primary), obtained free from the Tennessee Secretary of State. This 2023 act deleted Title 30, Chapter 4 in full and substituted 'The Small Estate Probate Act,' replacing the former clerk-certified affidavit route (2022 Pub. Ch. 665) with a court-petition/limited-letters procedure. It restates the $50,000 small-estate ceiling (new § 30-4-102(9)) and the 45-day wait (new § 30-4-103), and provides a good-cause waiver of the 45-day wait. The full codified chapter is otherwise behind the LexisNexis-contracted Tennessee Code, but the enacted public chapter is the controlling primary text.