
Delaware Probate Timeline
A full Delaware administration runs 12 to 18 months, floored by the eight-month creditor bar counted from the death rather than notice.
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A full Delaware administration runs 12 to 18 months, floored by the eight-month creditor bar counted from the death rather than notice.

Delaware probate without a lawyer runs through a county Register of Wills. Each county sets its own fees, and Rule 190 helps you.

Delaware voids a trust signed without a witness. What 12 Del. C. § 3545 asks for, how funding works, and what a revocable trust here cannot do.

Delaware moves personal property up to $50,000 on a small estate affidavit. Any Delaware real estate the decedent owned closes the route entirely.

Delaware gives a surviving spouse up to $7,500 under 12 Del. C. § 2308, but only on a written demand made inside the shorter of two deadlines.

Delaware step-up in basis: inherited property resets to its date-of-death value under IRC 1014. Delaware taxes no estate and no inheritance.

Delaware gives a surviving spouse a third of the elective estate and a $7,500 allowance, and both are lost by silence.

A Delaware transfer on death deed only works if it is recorded before the owner dies, and it needs 2 witnesses, at least 1 of them not a beneficiary.

Delaware sets no trustee notice deadline. 12 Del. C. § 3303 hands that to the document, and two chapter 35 clocks run regardless.

A Delaware will contest is a caveat before the order of probate, or a petition for review within 6 months after it under 12 Del. C. 1309.
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