Skip to main content
Nebraska Probate Accounting
Support GuideNebraska31 min read

Nebraska Probate Accounting

Nebraska probate accounting: the three-month inventory under Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2467, the account that closes an estate, and the six-month challenge window.

By Settled Editorial

Nebraska probate accounting is one filing and one delivery. You file an inventory of the decedent's property with the county court within three months of your appointment under Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2467, and when you close, you furnish a full written account of your administration to the distributees whose interests it affects under 30-24,117(a)(3).

The account itself never reaches the judge in an ordinary unsupervised estate. That single fact reorders the job, because the document families picture as the final accounting is written for them rather than for the court, while the paper the court receives is a short verified statement that the work is done. Every rule below was read on September 10, 2026 at the Nebraska Legislature's own statute pages, and each section's amendment chain was read with it. The two inventory sections end at Laws 2000, LB 968. The closing sections end at Laws 1974, LB 354 and Laws 1978, LB 650, and the claim sections that gate them were last touched in 2009 and 2019.

One forum handles all of it. Neb. Rev. Stat. 24-517(1) gives each county court exclusive original jurisdiction of all matters relating to decedents' estates, including the probate of wills and their construction, with two carve outs the subsection names by number. So the inventory and the closing statement go to the clerk of the county court where the estate is open, in any of the 93 counties. Read this page beside the duties this account reports on and the claim window that gates closing.

This page states Nebraska law rather than the facts of one estate. Confirm your own dates with the clerk of the county court holding the file, or with a licensed Nebraska attorney.

DutyNebraska ruleStatute or rule
InventoryPrepared and filed within three months after appointmentNeb. Rev. Stat. 30-2467
Valuation standardFair market value as of the date of deathNeb. Rev. Stat. 30-2467
Where the inventory goesOriginal filed with the county court, copy to interested persons who request itNeb. Rev. Stat. 30-2467
AppraisersOptional, with names and addresses shown on the inventory beside the items appraisedNeb. Rev. Stat. 30-2468
Supplementary inventoryOwed for new property and for an erroneous or misleading valueNeb. Rev. Stat. 30-2469
Final accountFurnished in writing to affected distributees, not filedNeb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,117(a)(3)
Closing statementNo earlier than five months after original appointmentNeb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,117(a)
Publication preconditionFirst publication more than four months before the statementNeb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,117(a)(1)
Fee disclosure in the accountMust state whether a fee was by agreement or fixed by the courtNeb. Ct. R. 6-1438
Fee reviewReasonableness reviewed on petition, with refunds availableNeb. Rev. Stat. 30-2482
Challenge to the representativeSix months after the closing statement is filedNeb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,119
Claims against distributeesLater of three years after death or one year after distributionNeb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,120
Supervised estateClosed by court order rather than by sworn statementNeb. Rev. Stat. 30-2443

Nebraska Files the Inventory With the Court, and Several Code States Do Not

Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2467 sets a three month clock that starts at your appointment. Inside that window a personal representative who is neither a special administrator nor a successor to someone who already did the job shall prepare and file an inventory of property owned by the decedent at the time of death.

Read the second sentence of that section closely, because it is where Nebraska parts company with the Uniform Probate Code text several neighboring states kept. The personal representative shall send a copy of the inventory to interested persons who request it and shall file the original of the inventory with the court. There is no version of a Nebraska estate where the inventory stays in a drawer. A national checklist that offers you a choice between filing and mailing is describing a different state.

Three details govern what the document looks like:

  • Each item is listed with reasonable detail.
  • Each item carries its fair market value as of the date of the decedent's death, which is a snapshot rather than a current value.
  • Each item carries the type and amount of any encumbrance that exists with reference to it, so a house appears at its date of death value with its mortgage stated beside it rather than netted out of it.

Appraisers are yours to hire and yours to skip. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2468 lets you employ a qualified and disinterested appraiser to help fix the fair market value of any asset whose value may be subject to reasonable doubt, and different people may appraise different kinds of assets. When you use one, the names and addresses of any appraiser shall be indicated on the inventory with the item or items he appraised. Section 30-2468 asks for no court appointment, no oath and no fee schedule, so the choice and the cost sit with you.

The supplementary inventory in Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2469 reaches further than most executors expect. You owe one when property left out of the original inventory comes to your knowledge, which everybody anticipates, and equally when you learn that the value or description already listed for an item is erroneous or misleading. The supplement shows the market value as of the date of death of the new item, or the revised value or description, plus the appraisers or other data relied on. It gets filed with the court, and copies or the information go to persons interested in the new information. Learning in month five that the pickup was worth half what you wrote is a filing, not a footnote.

Need help with your probate case?

Answer a few questions to see whether Nebraska probate is required and which process applies.

Take the 2-minute assessment

The Inventory Decides Whether You Publish a Creditor Notice At All

Here is the weight the inventory carries in Nebraska, and it is the reason to build it early rather than at the three month wall.

Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,127 opens with the words "if it appears from the inventory and appraisal." Where the inventory shows that the value of the entire estate, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed the homestead allowance, exempt property, family allowance, costs and expenses of administration, reasonable funeral expenses, and reasonable and necessary medical and hospital expenses of the last illness of the decedent, the personal representative may immediately disburse and distribute the estate to the persons entitled to it without giving notice to creditors, then file a closing statement under 30-24,128.

That comparative test contains no dollar figure. It weighs what the estate holds against what the allowances and the priority expenses will absorb, so a modest estate carrying a large last illness bill can qualify while a smaller one with no such bill does not. The Nebraska small estate routes that skip probate altogether are a separate mechanism with their own caps, and this one runs inside an open estate with an appointed representative.

The closing statement for that route, in Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,128, swaps the publication recital for a sworn statement that to the best of your knowledge the estate met the comparative test. It may be filed at any time after disbursement and distribution, with no waiting period at all. It still calls for the written account to distributees and the copies to known unpaid creditors, and subsection (c) gives it the same effect as a statement filed under 30-24,117.

The Account Goes to the Distributees, and the Statement Goes to the Court

Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,117 closes an ordinary unsupervised Nebraska estate, and it stacks two intervals that readers merge into one all the time.

The verified statement cannot be filed earlier than five months after the date of original appointment of a general personal representative. Subdivision (a)(1) separately makes you swear that notice to creditors was published under 30-2483 and that first publication occurred more than four months before the date of the statement. Both conditions have to be true at once, so a first publication that slipped past the thirty day window in 30-2483(a) pushes the closing beyond the five month mark rather than tucking inside it.

Subdivision (a)(2) is the substance of the accounting. You swear that you have fully administered the estate by making payment, settlement or other disposition of all claims which were presented, the expenses of administration and the estate, inheritance and other death taxes, except as specified in the statement, and that the assets have been distributed to the persons entitled. Where claims remain undischarged, the statement has to say whether you distributed subject to possible liability with the agreement of the distributees, or set out the other arrangements made to accommodate the outstanding liabilities.

Subdivision (a)(3) is the delivery. You swear that you sent a copy of the closing statement to all distributees and to all creditors or other claimants of whom you are aware whose claims are neither paid nor barred, and that you furnished a full account in writing of your administration to the distributees whose interests are affected. Nebraska writes no schedule for that account, no required column headings and no approval step. The audience is the beneficiaries, and their remedy is the six month window in 30-24,119 rather than an objection at a hearing.

Supervised administration inverts the whole arrangement. Under Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2442 a supervised personal representative holds every ordinary power without interim orders, with one exception: no distribution of the estate without prior order of the court. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2443 then terminates the supervision by order under the time restrictions, notices and contents prescribed by 30-24,115, and permits interim orders approving partial distributions at any point during the case. In that lane the court can compel or approve an accounting, and the order of complete settlement discharges you from further claim or demand of any interested person. An interested person may petition for complete settlement under 30-24,115 without the representative, though only the representative may petition inside the first year after the original appointment, and no petition at all is entertained until the time for presenting claims that arose before the death has expired.

Advertisement

One Nebraska Court Rule Says What the Account Must Disclose About Fees

Nebraska's Uniform County Court Rules carry a requirement no statute states and no national template mentions, and it lands squarely on the accounting document.

Neb. Ct. R. 6-1438 applies in all probate matters where an interlocutory or final report is filed, where an account of administration to distributees is made in closing an estate by a sworn statement, or where a schedule of distribution is filed with the court. Where any such document reports payment of a fee paid or to be paid to a personal representative, guardian, conservator or attorney, the document must specify whether the fee was by agreement of the parties or was fixed by the court. A line reading "personal representative fee" with an amount beside it satisfies nothing on its own. The same line carrying the words "by agreement of the parties" or "fixed by the court" satisfies the rule.

Neb. Ct. R. 6-1437(A) reaches the other direction, at a low threshold. No personal representative who has individual claims of his or her own which arose against the decedent before the death shall pay those claims in excess of an aggregate amount of $500 without first specifically informing the court of the adverse interest and obtaining the court's approval. Reimbursing yourself for the funeral you paid before letters issued is an individual claim, and past $500 in the aggregate it needs disclosure and an order. Subsection (D) then makes the order itself say that any person aggrieved by payment of the claim may petition the court for a formal review.

Both rules feed the same review. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2480 entitles a personal representative to reasonable compensation in Nebraska and states no percentage and no graduated schedule, so a page quoting a customary Nebraska percentage is quoting no Nebraska authority. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2482 lets the county court review the propriety of employing any agent, the reasonableness of that agent's pay, and the reasonableness of the compensation you determined for your own services, on notice to interested persons or on an interested person's petition, and anyone who received excessive compensation may be ordered to make appropriate refunds. Subsection (2) lists seven factors, opening with the time and labor required, the novelty and difficulty of the questions involved, and the skill needed to do the work properly, and closing with the experience, reputation and ability of the person who did it. Because that review can arrive long after the work, dated time entries and the invoices behind an adviser's bill are the argument.

Litigation costs sit outside the fee question. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2481 entitles a personal representative, or a person merely nominated as one, who defends or prosecutes a proceeding in good faith to necessary expenses and disbursements including reasonable attorney fees, whether the effort succeeded or not.

What the Numbers Have to Reconcile With

An account is a story about money that has to match the law governing each payment.

Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2487 sets the order when the applicable assets cannot pay everything: costs and expenses of administration first, then reasonable funeral expenses, then debts and taxes with preference under federal law, then reasonable and necessary medical and hospital expenses of the last illness including claims filed by the Department of Health and Human Services under 68-919, then debts and taxes with preference under other Nebraska law, then all other claims. No claim takes preference over another in the same class, and a debt already due gets no preference over one not yet due. Subsection (c) deserves a read before you classify anything, because it counts expenses of taking possession or control of assets, management and preservation, sale expenses, and day to day operation of a business for the estate as costs of administration. The full ordering is worked through in how Nebraska ranks debts.

Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2485 supplies the dates behind the paid and unpaid columns. Claims that arose before the death are barred two months after first publication where notice complied with 25-520.01 and 30-2483, and three years after the death where it did not. A creditor who missed the two month bar, including one who received no notice, may apply to the court within sixty days after the bar date, and the court on good cause shown may allow not more than thirty days more. Claims arising at or after the death run on their own four month clocks under subsection (b).

Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2470 explains the receipts side. You take possession or control of the decedent's property, may leave real property or tangible personal property with the person presumptively entitled to it until possession becomes necessary for administration, and shall pay taxes on and take all steps reasonably necessary for the management, protection and preservation of the estate in your possession. Those steps are the expenses the account reports.

The standard behind every entry is in Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2464. A personal representative is a fiduciary who shall comply with the prudent investor rule in sections 30-3883 to 30-3889, and is under a duty to settle and distribute the estate as expeditiously and efficiently as is consistent with the best interests of the estate. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2473 prices a failure: where the exercise of power concerning the estate is improper, the personal representative is liable to interested persons for damage or loss resulting from breach of fiduciary duty to the same extent as a trustee of an express trust. Subsection (b) of 30-2464 supplies the shield on the other side, since a representative shall not be surcharged for acts of administration or distribution that were authorized at the time.

A successor inherits the whole file. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2477 gives a successor personal representative the same power and duty to complete administration and distribution as the original, minus any power the will made personal to the named executor.

Valuing the Distribution Is a Second Valuation Job

The inventory values property as of the date of death. Distribution values it again, on a different date, and Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,104 sets the method.

Distributable assets go out in kind so far as possible. A specific devisee takes the thing devised. A homestead or family allowance, or a devise payable in money, may be satisfied in kind only where the recipient has not demanded cash, where the property is valued at fair market value as of the date of its distribution, and where no residuary devisee has asked that the asset stay in the residue.

Subdivision (a)(3) prices that second valuation. Securities regularly traded on recognized exchanges are valued at the last sale price on the business day before distribution, or at the median between the bid and asked amounts at the close of that day where there was no sale. Sums owed to the estate by solvent debtors with no known dispute are valued at the sum due with accrued interest, or discounted to the distribution date. Assets without readily ascertainable values may be carried at a valuation set not more than thirty days before the distribution, and you may fix that value in any reasonable way, including a fresh appraisal even where the asset was appraised once already.

Subsection (b) holds the quiet protection most Nebraska executors never use. After the probable charges against the estate are known, you may mail or deliver a proposal for distribution to everyone with a right to object. A distributee who does not object in writing received by you within thirty days after mailing or delivery loses the right to object on the basis of the kind or value of the asset received. Sending that proposal turns an open argument about who takes the farm ground and who takes the certificates of deposit into a closed one.

Getting it wrong carries a defined consequence rather than an open one. Under Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,107 a distributee of property improperly distributed, or a claimant improperly paid, is liable to return the property and its income since distribution where he still holds it, and otherwise the value as of the date he disposed of it plus the income and gain he received. Property nobody claims is handled under 30-24,112, which routes unclaimed assets, fees, legacies, devises and distributive shares to sections 25-2714 to 25-2717.

Advertisement

Closing, and the Three Clocks That Keep Running Afterwards

Filing the closing statement ends the work. It does not end the exposure on the same day.

The office winds down first. Under Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,117(b), where no proceedings involving the personal representative are pending in the court one year after the closing statement is filed, the appointment terminates. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,128(b) says the same for a summary administration.

The challenge to you runs shorter than that wind down. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,119 bars the rights of successors, and of creditors whose claims are not otherwise barred, against the personal representative for breach of fiduciary duty unless a proceeding is commenced within six months after the filing of the closing statement, except as the closing statement provides or as an adjudication has already settled. Fraud, misrepresentation and inadequate disclosure related to the settlement of the estate sit outside that bar. The written account is what makes disclosure adequate, so a thin account trades a short exposure for a long one.

The claims that follow the money run longest. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,118 lets an undischarged claim that is not barred be prosecuted against one or more distributees after assets have gone out, capped at the value of what each received at the time of distribution, with each bearing the cost as if the claim had been satisfied during administration. A distributee who fails to tell the others about a demand in time for them to join the proceeding loses the right of contribution. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,120 then cuts everything off at the later of three years after the decedent's death or one year after the distribution, with fraud again excepted.

Nebraska's inheritance tax sits on its own twelve month track and the county collects it, so the account has to show it settled. Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-2010 makes the tax due and payable twelve months after the death and adds a penalty of five percent per month, capped at twenty five percent, for failure to file an appropriate proceeding for determination inside that year. Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-2018.01 lets that determination happen inside the probate or in a proceeding brought for the sole purpose of fixing the tax. The rates and the county mechanics are worked through in the inheritance tax the county assesses.

Nebraska Publishes No Inventory Form and No Accounting Form

The Nebraska Judicial Branch runs one statewide forms library, and its probate category lists nine numbered CC 15 forms: CC 15:1, a demand for notice; CC 15:2, a statement of claim; CC 15:3, a release of claim; CC 15:5, a certificate of mailing a notice of filing a petition for the determination of inheritance tax; CC 15:5.1, a notice that no Department of Health and Human Services notice is required; CC 15:6, an authorization to withdraw a will; CC 15:7, an order appointing a guardian ad litem; and CC 15:40 and CC 15:41, the affidavits for transferring personal and real property without probate. Not one of them is an inventory and not one is an account.

Every estate inventory and accounting form the library does publish sits in the CC 16 guardianship and conservatorship series: CC 16:2.9 inventory with an affidavit of due diligence, CC 16:2.45 updated inventory, CC 16:2.44 annual accounting, and CC 16:2.29 application for approval of an annual accounting or fees. All four belong to a ward's estate rather than a decedent's, so a search that lands you on one has answered a different question.

The gap is deliberate rather than accidental. Neb. Ct. R. 6-1442 gives conservators and guardians a thirty day initial inventory, an annual accounting with bank and brokerage statements attached, a proof of restricted account form, a notice of newly discovered assets above $500, and a court review of every filing, with an order to show cause where a filing runs thirty days late. Neb. Ct. R. 6-1445(B) then tells every court to accept only the standardized forms the State Court Administrator's Office approves in guardianship and conservatorship matters. Neither rule reaches a decedent's estate. A Nebraska guardianship is a form driven annual filing and a decedent's estate is not, which is why guardianship search results make a poor guide to what a personal representative owes. That separate track is covered in Nebraska guardianship planning.

So the format is yours, and the clerk of the county court holding the file is the person to ask about local preferences before you draft. Find yours in the Nebraska county court directory.

One rule punishes silence. Neb. Ct. R. 6-1447 subjects a petition or application for probate of a will, adjudication of intestacy, or appointment of a personal representative to dismissal without prejudice, on the court's own motion and with or without prior notice to interested persons, where the record shows no action taken by the petitioner for four months or longer and nothing explains the delay. Where the dismissal goes out without notice, the clerk promptly notifies the petitioner and any attorney of record. An estate that stalls between appointment and inventory is the record that rule describes. The sequence of filings and their dates is laid out in the Nebraska probate timeline.

When to Bring In a Nebraska Attorney

Nothing here tells you what to do in your own estate. Bring in a licensed Nebraska attorney when the assets look unable to cover everything and the six classes in Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2487 will decide who goes short, when a Department of Health and Human Services claim under 68-919 appears, when you hold an individual claim against the decedent above the $500 line in Neb. Ct. R. 6-1437, when an interested person petitions for supervised administration or asks the county court to review your fee under 30-2482, when a distribution in kind is contested, and before you file a closing statement while any claim remains undischarged. Confirm every date against the current statute and against the county court holding the file.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is the inventory due in a Nebraska probate?

Within three months after appointment, under Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2467. You prepare and file an inventory of property the decedent owned at death, listing it in reasonable detail, showing each item's fair market value as of the date of death and the type and amount of any encumbrance on it. The original is filed with the county court and a copy goes to any interested person who asks for one. A special administrator does not owe the duty, and neither does a successor whose predecessor already discharged it. The clock runs from your appointment, not from the death.

Does a Nebraska executor file a final accounting with the court?

In an ordinary unsupervised estate, no. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,117(a)(3) makes you furnish a full account in writing of your administration to the distributees whose interests it affects, and to send a copy of the closing statement to those distributees and to every creditor or claimant you know of whose claim is neither paid nor barred. What gets filed with the county court is the verified closing statement. The account goes to the people whose money it is. A supervised estate is different, because Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2443 closes it by court order under 30-24,115.

What has to be in a Nebraska closing statement?

Three sworn statements, under Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,117(a). That notice to creditors was published under 30-2483 and first publication occurred more than four months before the date of the statement. That you have fully administered the estate by paying, settling or otherwise disposing of every claim presented, the expenses of administration, and the estate, inheritance and other death taxes, except as the statement specifies, and that the assets have gone to the persons entitled to them. And that you sent a copy to all distributees and to known unpaid creditors and furnished the written account. Undischarged claims call for a further statement about how they were accommodated.

How long does someone have to challenge a Nebraska accounting?

Six months from the filing of the closing statement, under Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,119. Unless barred earlier by adjudication or by the closing statement itself, the rights of successors and of creditors whose claims are not otherwise barred are cut off after that. The section carves out fraud, misrepresentation and inadequate disclosure related to the settlement of the estate, which are not barred by the filing. Distributees run a different clock under 30-24,120: the later of three years after the death or one year after the distribution.

Does Nebraska publish an inventory form or an accounting form?

No. The Nebraska Judicial Branch statewide forms library lists nine numbered CC 15 forms in its probate category, and not one of them is an inventory or an account: CC 15:1 demand for notice, CC 15:2 statement of claim, CC 15:3 release of claim, CC 15:5 and CC 15:5.1 covering inheritance tax and Department of Health and Human Services notice, CC 15:6 authorization to withdraw a will, CC 15:7 order appointing a guardian ad litem, and CC 15:40 and CC 15:41 for transferring property without probate. Every inventory and accounting form the library publishes belongs to the CC 16 guardian and conservator series that Neb. Ct. R. 6-1442 governs, and that rule does not reach a decedent's estate. Format is yours to choose, so check with the clerk of the county court holding the file.

Does the account have to say how the executor fee was set?

Yes. Neb. Ct. R. 6-1438 covers any interlocutory or final report, any account of administration made to distributees in closing an estate by sworn statement, and any schedule of distribution filed with the court. Where such a document reports a fee paid or to be paid to a personal representative, guardian, conservator or attorney, the document must specify whether the fee was by agreement of the parties or was fixed by the court. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2480 sets the standard as reasonable compensation and publishes no percentage, and 30-2482 lets the county court review the fee and order a refund of anything excessive.

Can a Nebraska estate skip the creditor notice and close early?

Only through summary administration, and the inventory decides it. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-24,127 applies where it appears from the inventory and appraisal that the entire estate, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed the homestead allowance, exempt property, family allowance, costs and expenses of administration, reasonable funeral expenses, and reasonable and necessary medical and hospital expenses of the last illness. The personal representative may then disburse and distribute without giving notice to creditors and file a closing statement under 30-24,128 at any time after doing so, with the same effect as one filed under 30-24,117.

Sources:

It is not 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 Nebraska can change. Consult with a qualified attorney for advice specific to your situation. Full disclaimer.