First Steps After a Death in Hawaii

A medical professional has to pronounce the death. Where hospice was involved the hospice nurse can usually do it; where the death was unexpected or happened at home without hospice, call 911. The funeral home or crematory then handles the death certificate filing with the Hawaii Department of Health and the permit for burial or cremation.

Look at home, in any safe or safe deposit box, and with the lawyer who drafted it. HRS § 560:2-516 does not set a fixed number of days. After the death, and on request of an interested person, whoever has custody of a will must deliver it with reasonable promptness to a person able to secure its probate, or deposit it with an appropriate court if no such person is known. Hawaii accepts a will written and signed in the testator's own handwriting even with no witnesses (HRS § 560:2-502(b)), so a handwritten note in a drawer may matter.

Lock the house or condominium, collect keys and mail, and keep vehicles off the road until insurance and ownership are sorted out. Nobody has legal authority over the estate yet, so this is caretaking, not distribution. Once a personal representative is appointed, HRS § 560:3-709 gives that person the right and duty to take possession or control of the decedent's property and to take reasonable steps to protect and preserve it.

Hawaii has an old statute that helps families find accounts before anyone is appointed. HRS § 531-20 requires a bank, fiduciary company, agent or trustee, as soon as practicable after receiving a written statement verified by oath showing the death, that the person making it is a kinsman of the deceased and the relationship, and that the person claims to be an heir, to disclose the nature and kind of property it holds for the deceased.

Certified copies come from the Hawaii Department of Health, and only to someone with a 'direct and tangible interest'. HRS § 338-18(b) lists, among others, the spouse, a parent, a descendant, a person with a common ancestor, a legal guardian, and 'A personal representative or trustee of the registrant's estate or trust'. The fee is set by statute: $10 for the first copy and $4 for each additional copy issued in the same request (HRS § 338-14.5). Order enough for every bank, insurer, county motor vehicle office and the Bureau of Conveyances.

Hawaii probate is heard by the circuit court of the judicial circuit where the decedent was domiciled at death (HRS § 560:3-201(a)(1)). HRS § 603-1 divides the State into four circuits: the First is Oahu; the Second is Maui, Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe and Molokini, which takes in both Maui County and Kalawao; the Third is Hawaii island; and the Fifth is Kauai and Niihau. There is no Fourth Circuit. The Judiciary's contact page for each circuit lists its probate desk: the Estate and Probate Branch on Oahu, and Estate and Guardianship on the neighbor islands.

Much of a Hawaii estate can pass without a court. A joint bank account belongs to the surviving party and a payable-on-death account to the named payee (HRS § 560:6-104). Securities registered in beneficiary form pass to the beneficiary (HRS § 539-7). Real estate under a transfer on death deed recorded or filed before the death passes to the named beneficiary (HRS §§ 527-9 and 527-13), and property held as joint tenants or tenants by the entirety passes to the survivor. Life insurance and retirement accounts follow their beneficiary designations. What is left in the decedent's sole name is what probate is for.

The funeral home usually reports the death to Social Security. Call the decedent's pension administrator, life insurers and any annuity company yourself, and stop any automatic payments that will have to be returned. Ask each for its own claim paperwork.

If the gross value of everything the decedent owned in Hawaii is $100,000 or less, HRS § 560:3-1201 lets a successor collect personal property by giving the holder an affidavit and a death certificate. Nothing is filed with a court, no fee is charged, and the statute sets no waiting period. Motor vehicles registered in the decedent's name may be transferred this way regardless of value. Two limits catch families out: the measure is GROSS, so a mortgage is not subtracted, and the affidavit cannot transfer real estate even though real estate counts toward the $100,000. The route closes once anyone applies or petitions to be personal representative in Hawaii.

Above the affidavit, Hawaii has three court routes. If property in Hawaii totals $100,000 or less but includes real estate, the clerk of the circuit court can be authorized to administer it as personal representative (HRS § 560:3-1205), paying three per cent of the market value of the first $100,000 of the gross estate to the State instead of ordinary court costs (HRS § 560:3-1211). Otherwise the usual route is INFORMAL probate: a verified application to the registrar under HRS § 560:3-301, no hearing, and $215 collected at filing. FORMAL probate is litigation before the judge with notice and a hearing (HRS § 560:3-401), and is the route when the original will is missing or someone objects.

HRS § 560:3-203(a) sets the order: a person with priority under a probated will, then a surviving spouse or reciprocal beneficiary who is a devisee, other devisees, the surviving spouse or reciprocal beneficiary, other heirs, and, forty-five days after the death, any creditor. A person with priority may nominate someone else, and anyone eighteen or older may renounce in writing. An objection to an appointment can be made only in formal proceedings.

The registrar may not informally appoint a personal representative until at least 120 hours have passed since the death, and, if the decedent was not a Hawaii resident, until thirty days have passed unless the applicant is the personal representative appointed at the domicile (HRS § 560:3-307(a)).

A personal representative appointed in informal proceedings gives no bond unless the will expressly requires one, a special administrator's bond is requested, or an interested person with more than $10,000 at stake, or a creditor with a claim over $10,000, demands one and the court orders it (HRS §§ 560:3-603(a) and 560:3-605).

Within thirty days after informal probate is granted, the applicant sends written information about it to the heirs and devisees (HRS § 560:3-306(c)), and within thirty days after appointment every personal representative except a special administrator informs the heirs and devisees of the appointment (HRS § 560:3-705).

Publication is optional in Hawaii. The applicant or petitioner may publish a notice once a week for two successive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the judicial circuit (HRS § 560:3-801(a)). If you do, pre-death claims are barred four months after the first publication; a known creditor served with written notice has until the later of that date or sixty days after service. If you do not, claims stay open until eighteen months after the death (HRS § 560:3-803(a)).

Within three months after appointment the personal representative prepares an inventory of what the decedent owned at death, listing each item with its fair market value at the date of death and the type and amount of any encumbrance, and files it with the court or mails it (HRS § 560:3-706). Filing it with the court is optional. A copy goes to any interested person who asks.

A $30,000 homestead allowance goes to a surviving spouse or reciprocal beneficiary, or is divided among minor and dependent children if there is none (HRS § 560:2-402); $20,000 in value of household furniture, automobiles, furnishings, appliances and personal effects is exempt property (HRS § 560:2-403); and the family may receive a reasonable family allowance for up to a year (HRS § 560:2-404). The personal representative may fix the family allowance at up to $36,000 as a lump sum or $3,000 a month for one year (HRS § 560:2-405). Hawaii Probate Rule 90(b) still sends a family allowance over $18,000 to a court order, a figure the 2023 statute outgrew; ask the court before relying on either number alone.

After the claim period ends, HRS § 560:3-807(a) directs the personal representative to pay allowed claims in the order HRS § 560:3-805 prescribes, after providing for the allowances and for claims still pending. A personal representative who pays a claim before the period ends without taking security for a refund, or who pays in a way that deprives another claimant of priority through negligence or wilful fault, is personally liable to the injured claimant (HRS § 560:3-807(b)).

A surviving spouse or reciprocal beneficiary who wants the elective share must file a petition within nine months after the death or six months after the will is probated, whichever is later. A petition filed more than nine months after the death loses the decedent's nonprobate transfers from the calculation unless the court extended the time on a petition filed within the nine months (HRS § 560:2-211).

Hawaii has its own estate tax under HRS chapter 236E and no inheritance tax. The Hawaii exclusion is the federal exclusion as it stood for a death on December 31, 2017, not today's federal figure (HRS § 236E-6), which puts it at $5,490,000, far below the federal exclusion for a 2026 death. Tax rates run from 10 to 20 per cent of the Hawaii taxable estate (HRS § 236E-8). A Hawaii return, where required, is due on the federal due date, nine months after the death (HRS § 236E-9).

Unless the court prohibits it and the estate is not supervised, the personal representative may close by filing a verified statement no earlier than six months after the original appointment, stating that the claim period has expired, the estate is fully administered and distributed, and a copy and a full written account have gone to the distributees and to known unpaid claimants (HRS § 560:3-1003(a)). If no proceeding is pending one year later, the appointment ends.

A Hawaii personal representative is entitled to reasonable compensation; there is no percentage schedule. A personal representative may renounce all or part of it, and a written renunciation may be filed with the court (HRS § 560:3-719).