Probate is the court-supervised process by which a person’s debts are paid and the property they owned at death is transferred to the people entitled to receive it. In Colorado, most probates are “informal,” meaning the personal representative (i.e., the executor) handles the estate without regular hearings before a judge. Even so, the personal representative takes on legal duties to the estate’s creditors and beneficiaries, and the process has deadlines which carry consequences if they are missed.
Elkhorn Law represents personal representatives in Larimer County and helps families understand what needs to happen, in what order, and who is responsible for each step. We also handle estates in which a Colorado home or cabin belonged to someone who lived in another state.
Services
- Probating a Will: opening the estate, appointing the personal representative named in the will, and carrying out the will’s instructions.
- Probate Without a Will: administering an estate under Colorado’s rules of intestate succession, which decide who inherits when there is no valid will.
- Avoiding Probate: planning ahead so that some or all of your property passes outside of court.
Your Role as Personal Representative
If you have been named as personal representative, you are responsible for gathering the estate’s property, giving notice to creditors and heirs, paying valid claims and expenses, and distributing what remains. Such duties are fiduciary duties, which means you must put the interests of the estate and its beneficiaries ahead of your own. We explain these duties at the start of every probate matter, prepare and file the court forms, draft the deeds that transfer real property out of the estate, and keep you on schedule through closing.
Not every estate needs a full probate. Where a person died owning only modest personal property, a small estate affidavit may be enough, and where property was held in a trust or passed by beneficiary designation, there may be little left for the court to do. We will tell you which applies.
To learn more about serving as a personal representative, read 10 Things to Know as a New Personal Representative.