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Delaware Executor Duties
Pillar GuideDelaware42 min read

Delaware Executor Duties

Delaware executor duties on the statute's clocks: qualify with the Register of Wills, file the inventory in 3 months, then the 8-month bar.

By Settled Editorial

Delaware executor duties begin when the Register of Wills grants letters, and the statute dates most of them from that grant. You qualify and take the oath, file an inventory and appraisal within 3 months, pay the surviving spouse's allowance ahead of every other claim, wait out a creditor bar that runs 8 months from the death rather than from your appointment, render an account every year, and settle within 1 year of letters.

Every rule below was read on September 10, 2026 in the Delaware Code at delcode.delaware.gov and in the Rules of the Court of Chancery published by the Delaware Judiciary. Two of the duties on this page live outside Title 12 and are easy to miss because of it. The duty to notify the people entitled to shares of the estate sits in the Delaware Constitution. The standard that sets your commission sits in a court rule. Both are cited where they appear.

Read this beside the dates behind each duty and the directory of your county's Register of Wills.

Your Filing Counter Is the Register of Wills, and Your Judge Is the Court of Chancery

Delaware splits the job across two offices, and knowing which one you are dealing with saves a wasted trip.

12 Del. C. § 2501 states the relationship in one sentence: in performing the functions of the office, the Register of Wills of each county shall act only as a Clerk of the Court of Chancery. Delaware has three counties, so there are three Registers, and 12 Del. C. § 1302(a) puts the will before the Register of the county where the decedent was domiciled at death. § 1504(a) sends letters of administration to that same Register. Where the testator was not domiciled here, § 1302(a) allows proof before the Register of any Delaware county holding goods, chattels, rights, credits, lands or tenements of the deceased, and § 1504(b) gives the first grant of ancillary administration exclusive reach over the whole Delaware estate.

The Register also decides things. 12 Del. C. § 2502(b) says that where no notice is required by statute or court rule, the Register may hear and determine the matter and make any order the Court of Chancery could make, subject to being set aside or modified by the Court within 30 days. Past that window the Register's order carries the same effect as the Court's. So an unnoticed routine matter is usually finished at the Register's office, and a contested one moves to Chancery.

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Before Letters: the 10-Day Will Rule, the Priority Ladder, and Why Bond Is the Exception

Delaware puts one duty on whoever is holding the will, and it runs from information rather than from a court date. Under 12 Del. C. § 1301(a), any person having custody or possession of an instrument purporting to be a last will shall produce and deliver it to the Register of Wills for the county in which that person resides, within 10 days from the time the person receives information of the testator's death. Subsection (b) makes a person who wilfully fails to deliver a will liable to anyone aggrieved for the damages the failure causes, and adds civil contempt after the Court of Chancery has ordered delivery.

Who gets appointed depends on whether a will named someone. 12 Del. C. § 1502(a) sends letters testamentary to the executor named in a will admitted to probate. Where there is no will, or no named executor who can serve, § 1505(b)(1) sets a class ladder and stops at the first class with a living member who is not under an incapacity: spouse, then children, then parents, then siblings of the whole and half blood. Everyone in that first qualifying class who gives any necessary bond and does not renounce is appointed together. § 1505(d) carries the date most summaries drop: if there is nobody in any of those classes, or if no petition for administration is filed within 60 days from the date of death, the Register grants letters to whomever the Register determines. Family priority is not permanent.

Three people cannot serve at all. 12 Del. C. § 1508 bars letters to a minor, to a person who is mentally incapacitated, and to a person convicted of a crime disqualifying that person from taking an oath.

Qualifying is two documents. 12 Del. C. § 1521 says a personal representative qualifies by filing with the Register any required bond, and § 1509 requires every executor or administrator to take and subscribe an oath, affixed to the bond, to perform the duties of office with fidelity.

Bond is the exception in Delaware rather than the rule, which reverses the default in most states. 12 Del. C. § 1522 says no bond shall be required before receiving letters except where the will contains an express requirement of one, or where the Court of Chancery orders it under § 1524. Even a bond the will requires may be dispensed with if the Court determines it is not necessary or desirable. Where bond is required and no amount is named, § 1523 has the Register fix it at not less than the best estimate of the decedent's personal estate.

§ 1524 is the section that turns the default around. Any person apparently having an interest in the estate worth more than $2,000, or any creditor with a claim over $2,000, may file a written demand with the Court of Chancery that you be bonded, with a copy mailed to you. Once the Court has ordered bond, you shall refrain from exercising any power of office except as necessary to preserve the estate, and failure to give suitable bond within 10 days from notice is cause for removal and appointment of a successor. Settle whether you must post a bond before you start signing on behalf of the estate.

Delaware Does Not Notice the Heirs at Probate. It Notices Them at the Account

This is the duty a family from another state expects at the wrong moment, and the one an executor is most likely to discover late.

There is no notice to heirs when the will is admitted. 12 Del. C. § 1303 says proof of a will may be taken without notice to persons interested, unless such a person requests it by petition filed with the Court of Chancery. On that petition the Court appoints a time for taking the proof and may issue subpoenas. What protects an heir who never heard about the probate is § 1309(a), a right of review: any interested person who did not appear at the taking of the proof and was not served under § 1303 may petition within 6 months after the entry of the order of probate, and on review the Court may affirm the will or reject it and revoke the letters.

The notice duty attaches to the account, and it is constitutional. Del. Const. art. IV, § 32(a) requires the executor or administrator to file every account with the Register of Wills, who examines and settles it, and then says the executor or administrator "shall within 3 months after such settlement give notice in writing to all persons entitled to shares of the estate, or to their guardians, respectively, if residing within this State, that the account is lodged in the office for inspection." Read the three limits inside that sentence. The owner of the duty is you, not the Register and not the Court. The anchor is the settlement of an account, not the death and not the appointment. The unit is months, and the number is 3.

Court of Chancery Rule 194(a) is how the duty is actually performed, and it is worth reading because it hands you a task at filing time. After the accounting is filed with the statement of beneficiary names and addresses that 12 Del. C. § 2302(a) requires, and after the Register adjusts and settles it, the Register mails written notice that the accounting has been filed and will be open for inspection and exception for 3 months from the date of mailing, in accordance with Article IV, § 32 of the Constitution. The rule then says the notice shall be given in the name of the personal representative, and that the form of notice and stamped addressed unsealed envelopes are supplied by the personal representative at the time of filing the accounting. Miss the envelopes and the notice does not go out.

Proof of the notice is a real filing, made by the Register rather than by you. 12 Del. C. § 2302(b) requires the Register to certify on the account that the notices were mailed and the date of mailing, and Rule 194(c)(1) repeats that certification duty. Rule 194(c)(2) has the Register identify any waivers and consents, because § 2302(c) lets a beneficiary waive the notice in writing and consent to approval of the account.

The Constitution attaches no penalty to a missed notice, and this page will not invent one. The one named consequence is in 12 Del. C. § 2332. A petition for a decree of distribution must state whether the executor or administrator has given the notice required by § 32, article IV of the state Constitution, and subsection (b) says that if the notice has not been given when the petition is filed, "the Court shall forthwith order such notice to be given by such executor or administrator within such time as shall be fixed by the Court." The estate waits until you have done it.

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The Inventory: 3 Months, an Affidavit, and a Second Filing Most Families Miss

12 Del. C. § 1905(a) is the first hard date you own. Within 3 months after the granting of letters, you file with the Register of Wills of the county that granted them an inventory and appraisal, and you file a copy with the Register of any county where the decedent owned real estate. It carries an inventory of all goods and chattels, a list of all debts and credits due or belonging to the decedent, and a statement describing every parcel of Delaware real estate the decedent died seized of or that transferred by a transfer on death deed under Chapter 2 of Title 25, including the parcel identification number and the name and relationship of each party entitled to an interest. Every item is separately valued at fair market value as of the date of death.

§ 1905(b) requires an affidavit from each executor or administrator, and § 1905(c) prints the wording. § 1905(d) adds a filing that runs on its own clock: where any action affecting title to Delaware real estate of the decedent is brought in any court, by caveat, petition for review, petition for instructions or otherwise, you file notice of the pendency of that action within 10 days, with the Register of any county where the decedent owned real estate other than the county that granted letters.

§ 1905(e) is the one that reaches families who never open an estate at all. Where real property passes by joint ownership with right of survivorship or by tenancy by the entireties, the personal representative or the surviving joint tenant shall, within 3 months after the decedent's death, file an affidavit with the Register of Wills of the county where the property is located, describing the real estate and naming the surviving owner. That clock starts at the death, not at the grant of letters, so a surviving spouse holding the house by the entireties owes this filing whether or not anyone is appointed.

Not everything goes on the list. 12 Del. C. § 1901(b) keeps the family Bible, the decedent's clothes and the family stores laid in before the death out of the inventory. § 1901(c) keeps out property passing under an insurance policy, pension, bonus, stock option or other employee benefit plan to a named person other than the estate, and gives that person the property as against any claim of a personal representative, creditor, legatee or next of kin. One thing does go on: § 1909 says making a person executor does not extinguish a debt that person owed the decedent, and the debt is inserted in the list of debts.

Delaware does not force a formal appraisement on you. 12 Del. C. § 1904 lets the personal representative employ one or more qualified and disinterested appraisers to help fix the fair market value of any asset whose value is subject to reasonable doubt, with different appraisers for different kinds of assets, and it requires the names and addresses of any appraiser to be shown on the inventory beside the items appraised. Where diligent inquiry turns up nothing, § 1908 lets an affidavit stand in place of the inventory or the list of debts.

Assets that surface later get an additional inventory under § 1910, and the Court of Chancery may suppress an inventory or adjudge it imperfect and order another under § 1911. A coexecutor who refuses to join in the inventory or the list of debts is removed under § 1907 unless that person files one on their own behalf.

Filing late has a price. 12 Del. C. § 1906(a) makes an executor or administrator who misses the 3 months subject, personally and individually, to a penalty of $1.00 per day for each day delinquent, and then softens it: the penalty does not apply until 1 month after the Register of Wills gives notice of the delinquency. Subsection (b) adds contempt of Court for a failure to file after the Court of Chancery has ordered it. The catchline over the section reads "civil and criminal penalties," and the text of the section names no crime, so read the catchline as an old label rather than as a description of what the section does.

The Real Estate Is Not Yours to Possess, and Selling It Takes a Petition

An executor who has settled an estate in another state usually assumes the house is an estate asset to be marketed. Delaware starts somewhere else.

12 Del. C. § 1902(a) makes the rents and profits of the decedent's real estate that come into your hands assets for the payment of debts, and charges you with them. Subsection (b) then draws the line: "Nothing in this section shall give to the executor or administrator any right of possession of the real estate; but if in possession, the executor or administrator shall, with the rents and profits, keep the premises in tenantable repair." Possession is a fact about where you already stand, not a power the letters hand you.

Selling it to pay debts is a Chancery proceeding with its own notice. Under 12 Del. C. § 2701(a), when the personal estate is not sufficient to pay the decedent's debts, the executor or administrator may petition the Court of Chancery of the county where the real estate lies for an order of sale. Subsection (b) requires written notice of the intention to present that petition, and of the day and place, given at least 10 days in advance to the parties interested, to the guardians of any minor parties, and to the tenants in possession of the premises, with publication or service as the Court directs for anyone outside the State. § 2703 has you exhibit to the Court, on oath, a true account of the personal estate and of the outstanding debts, together with the § 1905 inventory. A creditor who thinks you are sitting on it can force the question under § 2702.

A will that directs a sale changes the route, so read the will before you assume a petition is needed. 12 Del. C. § 2719(b) says that where a will devises real estate to be sold and authorizes nobody to make the sale, the person having the execution of the will may sell it in execution of the devise. § 2719(a) survives that authority to the remaining executors if one dies, § 2719(d) passes it along if the named executor dies, is removed, renounces, will not give bond or is incapable, and § 2719(e) takes the purchaser free of any liability for the application or misapplication of the purchase money.

Creditors: the Register Publishes, and the Clock Runs From the Death

Delaware moves the publication duty off the executor, which is the opposite of the arrangement in most probate codes, and it anchors the bar to a date nobody can change.

12 Del. C. § 2101(a) puts the notice of the grant of letters on the Register of Wills, carrying the date of the grant, the date of death, and the name and address of the personal representative and of that representative's counsel, if any. Subsection (b) has the Register post it within 40 days from the grant on the designated county website or in the county courthouse, and publish it in one or more approved newspapers at least 3 times within the same period, once a week for 3 successive weeks. Where the Register determines the gross personal estate does not exceed $30,000 and the gross real and personal estate does not exceed $35,000 in the aggregate, the Register may give notice by posting alone. Your part is money rather than paperwork: § 2101(c) lets the Register require the actual costs of posting and publication to be advanced before the grant of letters.

The bar itself is in 12 Del. C. § 2102(a), and the phrase to read twice is at the end. Claims arising before or at the death, including claims of the State, are barred against the estate, the personal representative and the heirs and devisees unless presented as provided in § 2104 within 8 months of the decedent's death, whether or not the notice referred to in § 2101 has been given. Opening the estate quickly does not shorten that window and opening it late does not lengthen it. Debts of which notice is presumed under § 2103, meaning recorded mortgages and judgments that would be liens on Delaware real estate, sit outside the bar.

Claims arising after the death run on a different schedule under § 2102(b): 6 months after performance is due for a claim based on a contract with you, and 6 months after it arises for anything else. Once you reject a claim, § 2102(c) gives the claimant 3 months from your written notice of rejection, delivered in person or mailed to the last address you know, to commence an action, and that written rejection is yours to send. You may consent to extend that 3 months for a claim that is contingent, unliquidated or not yet due, and the Court of Chancery may order an extension to avoid injustice, but never past the applicable statute of limitations.

One section protects a careful executor from a claim that arrives out of order. 12 Del. C. § 2107 says that if you pay a claim of lower preference after 3 months from the grant of letters and before a higher-preference claim has been presented under § 2104, that payment shall be allowed. Work through handling creditor claims before you pay anything, because an allowance is easier to make than to unwind.

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The Order of Preference Has Twelve Rungs, and the Spouse Sits on the First One

12 Del. C. § 2105(a) tells you what order to pay in, and it starts by taking administration costs off the top: executors and administrators pay claims against the decedent in the listed order after payment of all administration expenses, fees and commissions. Then the twelve classes:

  1. The surviving spouse's allowance under 12 Del. C. § 2308
  2. Funeral expenses
  3. Child support arrears or retroactive support due as of the date of death
  4. Reasonable bills for medicine and medical attendance during the last sickness, and for nursing and necessaries for the last sickness
  5. Wages of servants and laborers employed in household affairs or in the cultivation of a farm, capped at one year's wages each
  6. Taxes imposed by the State
  7. Rent for not exceeding 1 year, in arrear or growing due at the electing party's choice
  8. Judgments against the decedent, including justice of the peace judgments and equity decrees for the payment of money
  9. Recognizances, mortgages and other obligations of record for the payment of money
  10. Obligations and contracts under seal
  11. Contracts under hand for the payment of money or delivery of goods, wares or merchandise
  12. Other demands

§ 2105(b) forbids preference among claims of the same class and denies a due claim any preference over one not yet due. Where two creditors leave you unable to tell which outranks the other, § 2106 lets you petition the Court of Chancery to summon them and settle the order, and it discharges you and your sureties from further liability on that preference once you comply.

The first rung is a payment you make rather than a claim you wait for. 12 Del. C. § 2308(a) entitles the surviving spouse to receive, and requires the executor or administrator to pay as soon as convenient, cash up to $7,500 out of the estate, in the § 2105 order of preference, on top of anything the will or the intestacy statute gives that spouse. § 2308(b) puts the demand on the spouse and dates it tightly: the allowance is of no effect unless the spouse notifies the Register of Wills of the county where letters were granted, and the executor or administrator, in writing, of a demand for a specific sum not exceeding $7,500, within 9 months from the date of death or 6 months from the grant of letters, whichever is the shorter period. § 2308(c) treats the allowance as a debt of the estate and lets you sell property to pay it as you would any other debt. Walk which debts get paid first before a single check leaves the estate account.

The Standard You Are Held To, and the Will That Can Change It

Delaware states the standard of care in the fiduciary chapter rather than in the probate chapters, so it is easy to read Title 12 chapters 15 through 27 and never find it.

12 Del. C. § 3301(a) says chapter 33 governs fiduciaries acting under governing instruments, § 3301(d) defines fiduciary to include personal representatives, and § 3301(e) defines a governing instrument as a will, trust agreement or declaration, court order, or other instrument that creates or defines the duties and powers of a fiduciary.

The standard is in § 3302(a). When investing, reinvesting, purchasing, acquiring, exchanging, retaining, selling and managing property for the benefit of another, a fiduciary shall act with the care, skill, prudence and diligence under the circumstances then prevailing that a prudent person acting in a like capacity and familiar with such matters would use to attain the purposes of the account. § 3302(c) then says the propriety of an investment decision is judged by what the fiduciary knew or should have known at the time of the decision, and that any determination of liability shall consider the performance of the entire portfolio. Hindsight on a single holding is not the test.

Two subsections change the picture and both point back at the will. § 3302(e) says a fiduciary acting under a governing instrument is not liable to anyone whose interests arise from that instrument for good faith reliance on its express provisions, and that the standards in the section may be expanded, restricted or eliminated by express provisions in a governing instrument. So the will you are administering can raise your duty or lower it, and reading it closely is the first thing you do rather than the last.

Online accounts sit in their own chapter. Delaware's fiduciary access statute is 12 Del. C. §§ 5001 through 5007, and § 5004 governs a fiduciary's control of digital accounts and digital assets while § 5005 covers recovery from a custodian. The split between what a custodian must hand over and what it may withhold is worked through in the estate's digital accounts.

What a Delaware Executor Gets Paid, and Why No Percentage Appears Here

12 Del. C. § 2305(a) is one sentence long and carries no number at all: "Commissions and attorneys' fees shall be allowed as provided by rule of the Court of Chancery." Delaware delegates the whole question, so a page that prints a Delaware commission percentage is quoting no statute and no rule.

The rule is Court of Chancery Rule 192. Subsection (a) allows commissions of personal representatives, and fees of the attorneys who represent them, in a reasonable amount. Subsection (b) lists eleven considerations that may go into what is reasonable: the time spent, the risk and responsibility involved, the novelty and difficulty of the questions presented, the skill and experience of the personal representative and the attorney, any provisions of the will regarding compensation, comparable rates for similar services in the locality, the character and value of the estate assets, the character and value of assets outside the probate estate that must still be valued and reported on a federal, state, local or foreign death tax return, the time constraints imposed on the personal representative and the attorney, the loss of other business necessitated by accepting the administration, and the benefits obtained for the estate. The same subsection then says commissions and fees shall not be considered unreasonable merely because they are based exclusively on hourly rates, exclusively on the value of the probate estate, or exclusively on the value of the assets includible for tax purposes. Either method of calculating survives the rule, and the rule names no rate for either one.

Rule 192(d) sets the review mechanism, and it is the reason your record matters. Commissions and fees are presumed reasonable unless a beneficiary files an exception to the account under 12 Del. C. § 2302(d) alleging that they are unreasonable, and the Court keeps the power to reduce them on its own where it finds them unreasonably high. Rule 192(e) puts the whole reasonableness standard into the Register's notice of the account filing, and ends that notice with a plain warning: a beneficiary who files no exception shall be deemed to consider the commissions and fees reasonable. Rule 192(f) applies the rule to estates of decedents dying on or after September 1, 1996.

So the argument for your fee is the file: dated entries describing the task and the hours, receipts for expenses you advanced, the listing agreements and offers behind any sale, and correspondence showing why an unusual step was taken. Timeliness is part of it too, because § 2305(c) lets the Court of Chancery reduce commissions and attorneys' fees where the accounts required by chapter 23 are not filed within the required time.

One sentence in § 2305 reads as a live requirement and is not one. Subsection (b) says no commission shall be allowed to an executor or administrator who has not complied with the requirements of Chapter 13 of Title 30. That chapter is Delaware's old inheritance tax, and the Delaware Code prints it as "Inheritance [Repealed]," repealed by 71 Del. Laws, c. 353, § 10, effective January 1, 1999. A conditioning sentence pointed at a repealed chapter has nothing left to condition. Delaware's estate tax went the same way: Title 30 chapter 15 is printed as "Estate Tax [Repealed]," repealed by 81 Del. Laws, c. 52, § 1, effective January 1, 2018.

Where two representatives serve the same estate in turn, 12 Del. C. § 1544 says commissions shall not be twice allowed on the same subject matter, though the Court may apportion them or award the whole to whichever one ought to have it.

The eleven Rule 192(b) considerations are worth reading in full before you decide what to claim, alongside what a beneficiary sees when the Register mails the account notice. Delaware executor compensation sets both out, and explains why the account, rather than any conversation beforehand, is the moment a Delaware commission is actually tested.

The Year, the Account, and the Decree

12 Del. C. § 2311 gives you the working period: except where circumstances justify a longer one, an executor or administrator has 1 year from the date of letters for settling the estate, and until that year expires you are not required to make distribution and not chargeable with interest on the assets in your hands. Assets that do carry interest or produce income are still accounted for.

Legacies follow the same year. 12 Del. C. § 2312(a) makes a legacy payable 1 year from the first appointment of a personal representative where the will appoints no time. § 2312(b) lets you refuse payment where it is apparent there are not assets, and says that where you know of any demand, outstanding or potential, you are not obliged to pay a legacy or distributive share unless the recipient gives security in a penalty double the value of the legacy, conditioned on refunding it if the estate turns out short. § 2312(c) is the clock that costs money: unless the will indicates a contrary intent, pecuniary legacies bear interest at 4 percent per annum payable from the estate beginning 13 months after the first appointment of a personal representative, until payment.

Accounting is annual, not one-and-done. 12 Del. C. § 2301(a) requires every executor or administrator to render an account of their administration to the Court of Chancery, in money, every year from the date of their letters until the estate is closed and a final account is passed. § 2301(b) states the consequence of skipping it in the statute's own words: the Court of Chancery shall issue process of attachment against the executor or administrator, and may enforce compliance by imprisonment. The pressure valves are in the same section. § 2301(c) lets the Register extend the time for accounting for sufficient cause, not to exceed 6 months, and lets the Register dispense with an account on your affidavit that there were no transactions in a given year, with an appeal to the Court of Chancery from that determination. § 2301(e) lets the Register forward an estate with 2 consecutive years of inactivity to the Court for judicial action.

Every account travels with a beneficiary list. 12 Del. C. § 2302(a) requires a statement of the names and mailing addresses of each beneficiary entitled to share in the distribution, flagging any beneficiary under a legal incapacity along with a guardian, trustee or parent, and noting anyone who waived notice. § 2302(b) has the Register mail the notice of filing, and § 2302(d) gives a beneficiary who did not waive 3 months from the mailing to file written exceptions with the Register. Exceptions filed after that 3 months shall not be considered by the Court, and if none are filed the account is approved, subject to the Court's power under § 2301(d) to disallow any item indicative of fraud, illegality or negligent failure to fulfill fiduciary obligations. Court approval is not absolution: Rule 196 says approval does not relieve the personal representative from liability for loss or injury to the probate estate caused by that representative's act, neglect, default, fraud, deception or concealment.

Two filings gate the final account. 12 Del. C. § 2304(b) requires an affidavit in a form approved by the Director of Revenue, filed with the Register of Wills of the counties where the real property is located, where no return is required under the repealed Title 30 chapter 15 and either real property passed by survivorship or entireties or letters were granted and the decedent owned real property. Court of Chancery Rule 195(b) then says no final accounting shall be presented to the Court for approval until a tax clearance form has been filed with the Register by the Division of Revenue, and Rule 195(a) holds the accounting back until the 3 months from the Rule 194(a) mailing have run, unless every interested beneficiary has signed a waiver and consent. What the Court expects to see in that filing is worked through in the accounting the Court expects.

Where the shares are disputed or the people entitled are hard to identify, subchapter III of chapter 23 gives a formal exit. 12 Del. C. § 2332 lets you or any person claiming an interest petition the Court of Chancery for a decree of distribution once an account has been filed, § 2333 sets the hearing with certified mail notice to everyone named and publication once a week for at least 4 weeks, § 2335 lets the Court reserve part of the estate for contingent liabilities, and § 2338 makes the decree final and binding 30 days after entry unless appealed to the Supreme Court.

Resigning, Removal, and Handing the File to Someone Else

Leaving the job has a procedure, and none of it is informal.

12 Del. C. § 1547(a) lets an executor or administrator petition the Court of Chancery to be discharged from office. The Court may grant it and revoke the letters where discharge appears to be for the benefit of the parties interested, on whatever terms it finds necessary for the security of the estate, after notice of the application and hearing served on interested parties inside the State and published as the Court directs for those outside it.

Removal comes from two directions. 12 Del. C. § 1541(a) lets the Court of Chancery remove an executor or administrator who neglects official duties. § 1907 removes a coexecutor or coadministrator who refuses or neglects to join in the inventory or list of debts, unless that person files one on their own behalf. And Rule 194(d)(1) lets the Register issue a rule to show cause why an accounting was not filed, returnable at the next convenient session of the Court.

Whatever the exit, the assets move. 12 Del. C. § 1543 entitles a coexecutor, coadministrator or successor to receive all the unadministered effects, including books and papers, in the outgoing representative's hands, with just allowances made. § 1546(a) backs it with force: where a removed executor or administrator refuses to deliver, the Court of Chancery may hear the parties in a summary proceeding, order delivery, and enforce the order by attachment, sequestration or any other process. § 1545 keeps the acts already done in the due course of administration valid until they are shown to have been erroneous or unlawful.

One closing route runs without you. Rule 194(d)(2) lets the Chief Deputy Register of Wills, after two or more consecutive years of inactivity with no accounting filed, enter an order closing the estate administratively, after mailed notice to heirs, beneficiaries, creditors and other interested parties and with no objections received. The rule says plainly that this does not release the personal representative from obligations or from liability to the estate, its creditors or its beneficiaries. An estate closed that way leaves you exposed rather than finished.

When to Bring In a Delaware Attorney

Nothing here tells you what to do in your own estate. Bring in a licensed Delaware attorney when a beneficiary files exceptions to your account under 12 Del. C. § 2302(d), when an interested person petitions for review of the will inside the § 1309 6-month window or files a caveat under § 1308, when the estate looks short and the § 2105 order will decide who goes unpaid, before you petition to sell real estate under § 2701, when someone demands bond under § 1524, and before any transaction between the estate and you or your family. Confirm every date against the current Delaware Code and against the Register of Wills holding your file.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the duties of an executor in Delaware?

Qualify by filing any required bond under 12 Del. C. § 1521 and taking the § 1509 oath, receive letters from the Register of Wills, file an inventory and appraisal within 3 months of the grant of letters under § 1905(a), pay the surviving spouse's allowance and then the claims in the 12-class order of § 2105, wait out the claim bar that runs 8 months from the date of death under § 2102(a), render an account every year under § 2301(a), and settle the estate within 1 year of letters under § 2311. The notice to the people entitled to shares comes later than most states place it, at the account rather than at the appointment.

Is an executor the same as a personal representative in Delaware?

Yes, and Delaware says so. 12 Del. C. § 101(6) defines personal representative to include an executor, an administrator, a successor administrator and an administrator with the will annexed, plus, in the statute's words, persons who perform "substantially the same function under the law governing their status". The definition names no guardian and no conservator, so the umbrella term is safe to use here. Executor is the word when a will named you and letters testamentary issued under § 1502. Administrator is the word when the Register granted letters of administration under § 1504.

When is the Delaware probate inventory due?

Within 3 months after the granting of letters testamentary or of administration, under 12 Del. C. § 1905(a). It is filed with the Register of Wills of the county that granted the letters, and a copy goes to the Register of any other county where the decedent owned real estate. Each item is separately valued at fair market value as of the date of death, and § 1905(b) requires an affidavit from every executor or administrator. Assets found later get an additional inventory under § 1910.

What happens if a Delaware executor files the inventory late?

12 Del. C. § 1906(a) charges the executor or administrator, personally and individually, a penalty of $1.00 per day for each day delinquent, and the same subsection says that penalty does not apply until 1 month after the Register of Wills gives notice of the delinquency. Subsection (b) adds contempt of Court for failing to file after the Court of Chancery has ordered it. The section's catchline says civil and criminal penalties, and the text of the section names no crime.

Does a Delaware executor have to post a bond?

Usually no. 12 Del. C. § 1522 says no bond shall be required of a personal representative before receiving letters, with two exceptions: a will containing an express requirement of bond, and an order of the Court of Chancery under § 1524. Under § 1524 anyone with an apparent interest worth more than $2,000, or a creditor with a claim over $2,000, may file a written demand with the Court that you be bonded. If the Court orders bond, § 1524 also stops you from exercising any power of office except what preserves the estate until the bond is filed, and gives you 10 days from notice before failure becomes cause for removal.

How much does a Delaware executor get paid?

Delaware publishes no percentage. 12 Del. C. § 2305(a) delegates the whole question, saying only that commissions and attorneys' fees shall be allowed as provided by rule of the Court of Chancery. That rule is Court of Chancery Rule 192, which allows commissions and fees in a reasonable amount and lists eleven considerations, among them time spent, risk and responsibility, comparable rates in the locality, and the benefits obtained for the estate. Rule 192(b) says commissions and fees are not unreasonable merely because they rest exclusively on hourly rates or exclusively on the value of the estate, so the rule permits either calculation without naming a rate.

What notice does a Delaware executor owe the heirs?

The duty exists and it sits in the state constitution rather than in Title 12. Del. Const. art. IV, § 32(a) requires the executor or administrator, within 3 months after the Register of Wills settles an account, to give notice in writing to all persons entitled to shares of the estate, or to their guardians, if residing within this State, that the account is lodged in the office for inspection. Court of Chancery Rule 194(a) works it: you supply the notice form and stamped addressed unsealed envelopes when you file the accounting, and the Register mails the notice in your name and certifies the mailing date. Delaware sets no heir notice at the will's admission, because 12 Del. C. § 1303 lets proof of a will be taken without notice unless an interested person petitions the Court of Chancery for it.

How long does a Delaware executor have to settle the estate?

Except where circumstances justify a longer period, 12 Del. C. § 2311 gives an executor or administrator 1 year from the date of letters to settle the estate, and until that year runs you are not required to distribute and not chargeable with interest on the assets in your hands. Two other clocks push against it. Claims are barred 8 months after the death under § 2102(a), and § 2312(c) starts 4 percent interest running on pecuniary legacies 13 months after the first appointment of a personal representative unless the will says otherwise.

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Settled Estate is not a law firm and does not give legal advice.

Information current as of September 10, 2026

Settled Estate is not a law firm, and this content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Probate laws and procedures in Delaware can change. Consult with a qualified attorney for advice specific to your situation. Full disclaimer.

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