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Rhode Island Probate Bond Requirements
Support GuideRhode Island21 min read

Rhode Island Probate Bond Requirements

Rhode Island requires a probate bond from every executor, administrator and guardian under R.I. Gen. Laws § 33-17-1. A will can excuse only the surety.

By Settled Editorial

Rhode Island starts from yes. R.I. Gen. Laws § 33-17-1 says every executor, administrator and guardian, before entering upon the execution of the trust, shall give bond to the probate court in any sum it requires, with sufficient surety or sureties. The live question in your estate is whether a surety has to sign beside you.

The judge who answers it sits down the street. Section 8-9-9 gives every probate court jurisdiction in the town or city in which it is established over the granting of administration and the accepting and allowing of bonds, so your bond amount is set in the city or town where the decedent lived. Read this alongside the Rhode Island executor duties guide for the rest of the qualifying sequence, and use the Rhode Island Probate Court directory to find the court holding the file.

Does Rhode Island Require an Executor Bond?

Yes, and the statute leaves no default the other way. Section 33-17-1 opens with a flat command covering all three offices at once: every executor, administrator and guardian shall give bond to the probate court before entering upon the execution of the trust. The two carve-outs the section names, §§ 33-17-3 and 33-17-4, change what the bond promises or who signs it. Neither one deletes the bond.

Section 33-8-1 attaches the bond to your letters. Upon the probate of a will the probate court issues letters testamentary to the executor named in it, if that person is legally competent, and if that person gives bond as by law required. No approved bond, no letters, no authority to touch a bank account.

Copy that says a Rhode Island will can waive the bond outright is describing a uniform-act state. Rhode Island asks every time and adjusts the terms afterward.

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The Will Excuses the Surety, Not the Bond

Section 33-17-4 is one of the shortest sections in Title 33 and the most misread. An order or request in a will that an executor or guardian shall be exempt from giving bond or surety shall only exempt that executor or guardian from giving surety. The probate court may still require the executor or guardian at any time to give bond with surety or sureties.

The Rhode Island Department of State form set is built around exactly that split. The Bonds group on the statewide probate forms index carries two appointment bonds, and both are bonds:

  • PC-3.1A, Universal Appointment Bond Corporate Surety Exempted. You sign, no surety company signs beside you.
  • PC-3.1B, Universal Appointment Bond with Corporate Surety. A corporate surety signs with you.

So the sentence in the will decides which of the two forms you file. It does not remove the filing. Anyone drafting a Rhode Island will should read that next to the Rhode Island will requirements guide, because one clause moves the estate from PC-3.1B to PC-3.1A and takes a surety premium off the books.

When Rhode Island Excuses the Surety

Two sections waive surety by status, and one waives it for a good Samaritan guardian.

SituationAuthorityResult
Will asks that the executor or guardian be exempt from bond or surety§ 33-17-4Surety excused, bond still filed
Administrator of an intestate estate who is the surviving spouse or the sole heir§ 33-17-1.2(a)No surety required
Administrator who is an heir at law and shows the court that circumstances warrant waiver§ 33-17-1.2(a)No surety required
Guardian who is the ward's spouse, parent, child, brother, sister or other heir at law, on the same showing§ 33-17-1.3(a)No surety required, temporary and full guardianships alike
Good Samaritan guardian§ 33-15-4.3No surety unless the court determines circumstances warrant it
Court finds the circumstances call for security anyway§§ 33-17-1.2(a), 33-17-1.3(a), 33-17-4Surety required

Section 33-17-1.2(b) tells the judge what to weigh, and the list is about family friction rather than dollars alone:

  • the total number of the decedent's heirs at law
  • the relationship of the heirs at law to one another
  • the extent to which there appear to be issues or conflicts between the heirs at law over the estate, or the corresponding lack of them
  • the total size, extent and monetary value of the estate

The court may conduct whatever hearings it deems appropriate before deciding. Section 33-17-1.3(b) repeats the same four factors for a ward's heirs at law in a guardianship.

Watch the gap between those two sections. Section 33-17-1.2 reaches administrators of intestate estates. Section 33-17-4 reaches a will that asks for the exemption. An executor under a will that says nothing about bond falls outside both, so the surety question goes to the probate judge under the § 33-17-1 words "with sufficient surety or sureties." If you are inheriting through the intestacy rules rather than a will, the Rhode Island intestate succession guide covers who stands in line for the job.

What the Rhode Island Bond Actually Promises

Section 33-17-1 writes out the conditions role by role. Read your own list, because the executor's and the guardian's differ.

Executor or administrator with the will annexed. Make and return to the probate court a true inventory of all the testator's personal property that has come to your possession or knowledge at the time of making the inventory. Administer according to law and the will all the personal property of the testator that comes to you or to anyone holding for you, plus all rents and proceeds of real estate you receive. Render true accounts of your administration upon oath.

Administrator. The same three conditions applied to the intestate's personal property, plus a fourth: deliver your letters of administration into the court if a will is later proved and allowed, settle your account in the probate court, and pay over all assets remaining in your hands to the executor of that will.

Guardian of an estate. Return a true inventory of all the real and personal property of the ward. Manage and dispose of all property according to law and for the best interests of the ward, and faithfully perform the trust. Render a true account on oath of the ward's property and of your management of it. At the end of the trust, settle the account and pay over everything remaining to the person entitled to it.

Notice which bond covers real estate. The guardian's inventory condition names real and personal property. The executor's and administrator's conditions name personal property, with real estate reaching the bond only through rents and proceeds.

Short-form wording carries the whole list. Under § 33-17-2, a condition reading that the fiduciary "shall faithfully perform his or her duties according to law as such fiduciary" has the same force, meaning and effect as reciting § 33-17-1 in full. Those conditions run straight into the inventory and the account, which is why the Rhode Island probate accounting guide is the companion piece to this one.

The Section 33-17-3 Alternative Bond

Rhode Island offers a second bond with a different promise. Under § 33-17-3, an executor authorized by the will, or an executor who is the residuary legatee, may give a bond conditioned to pay the funeral charges, debts and legacies of the testator and any allowance the court makes for the support of the widow and family.

Two administrative burdens fall away with it. That executor returns no inventory, and an executor who is the residuary legatee need not render an account to the probate court. Section 33-14-1 carries the same exception on the accounting side.

The trade is creditor exposure. Giving the § 33-17-3 bond does not discharge the lien on the testator's real property for the payment of debts, except as to any part the executor sells in good faith to a purchaser who pays real consideration for it. Property not sold that way can be taken on execution by a creditor who has not been satisfied. Section 33-17-26 also carves this bond out of the failure-to-inventory suit, which makes sense once you see that no inventory was owed. Anyone weighing it should read the Rhode Island creditor claims guide first.

How Much the Bond Is, and Who Sets It

Section 33-17-1 sets the amount at "any sum as it shall require." That is the whole rule. Rhode Island publishes no statewide bond schedule, no percentage and no bracket table, so the probate judge of the decedent's city or town fixes the number, and § 8-9-9 puts the accepting and allowing of bonds in that same court.

The figure is not frozen at appointment. Section 33-17-10(a) says that if a bond given to a probate court is insufficient either in amount or in security, the court shall require further bond, surety or sureties, and on the fiduciary's neglect or refusal to give it within the time the court fixes, the court shall remove that fiduciary without further notice and appoint a successor. Subsection (b) lets the court keep the existing bond in force and raise it by an appropriate amount instead of starting over, including when a temporary guardianship becomes permanent.

Premium is a separate question with no Rhode Island answer in the statute book. No section prices a probate bond, so the rate comes from the surety company rather than from the court, and any dollar range you see quoted online is national practice rather than Rhode Island law. Get the quote before the hearing, since the amount the judge sets drives what you pay.

Filing the Bond and the Thirty-Day Clock

  1. Settle the surety question first. Point the court to the exemption clause in the will under § 33-17-4, or make the § 33-17-1.2 or § 33-17-1.3 showing about your relationship to the decedent or ward. That answer picks your form.
  2. Use the statewide form. File PC-3.1A when surety is exempted and PC-3.1B when a corporate surety signs. Both come from the Rhode Island Department of State probate forms index, and every city and town uses the same PC series.
  3. File inside thirty days. Section 33-17-5 says a fiduciary required by §§ 33-17-1 through 33-17-4 to give bond who fails for thirty days after appointment to file a bond approved by the court may be adjudged to have declined the trust.
  4. Wait for approval before acting. Under § 33-17-7 no bond is accepted until the court examines and approves it, or the clerk examines it and finds it conforms to the order of the court, with that approval entered of record.
  5. Expect it to live at the courthouse. Section 33-17-9 makes every probate bond payable to the court and filed in the office of the probate clerk, and it is sued in the name of the court. If the bond is lost, a copy of the record goes in as evidence.

Co-fiduciaries get a choice under § 33-17-8: joint executors, administrators and guardians may give a joint bond, a several bond, or each a separate bond.

One error worth knowing about. Section 33-17-6 says a fiduciary who has given the court an instrument purporting to be a bond, which the court with jurisdiction accepted, is qualified as if a proper bond had been given, despite any defect in the instrument or any error in giving or accepting it. Appeal rights survive, and the court may require a proper bond at any time. Where an appeal is sustained, the thirty-day rule in § 33-17-5 does not bite if a new and satisfactory bond is given within thirty days after the final decree. Fold these dates into the wider schedule in the Rhode Island probate timeline guide.

Changing, Replacing or Getting Out of a Bond

  • Cancel and replace. Section 33-17-11 lets the probate court, for cause shown, cancel a fiduciary's bond so as to relieve the principal and the sureties for any breach committed after that, and take a new and sufficient bond in its place.
  • A surety wants out. Under § 33-17-12 the surety, or the surety's heirs, executors or administrators, may apply in writing at any time for relief from further liability. The court gives reasonable notice to the principal and to everyone it finds directly interested in the estate, then hears the application. If the petition can be granted without prejudice to the estate, the court may order the principal to give a new probate bond within a set time, and may remove that principal and appoint a successor if the order is ignored. The original surety walks away only from breaches after approval of the new bond, and the incoming surety picks up nothing that went wrong before it.
  • Show the court the estate. Section 33-17-13 lets a surety, or any other person interested in a probate bond, apply in writing for an order requiring the principal to exhibit fully before the court the condition of the estate, so the court can see whether it is being properly managed. Good faith gets the order. Refusing to obey it, or obeying it and having the court find the estate mismanaged, gets the fiduciary removed and a successor appointed.
  • Successors. Section 33-18-5 handles resignations. A continuing joint executor or testamentary guardian gives a new bond if required, and a new bond of the survivor, or of the survivor with the new appointee, is given where the court appoints one.

Who Can Sue on a Rhode Island Probate Bond

The bond is a promise to the court that anybody with a stake can enforce. Section 33-17-14 entitles every person interested in a bond given to a probate court to a copy of it on payment of the fee, and to sue on it in the name of the court.

Creditors take a longer road. Section 33-17-17 lets the probate court decree unfaithful administration where an executor or administrator neglects or refuses to raise money out of the estate, refuses to pay over what is in hand to creditors whose claims were filed and allowed or proved, or otherwise fails to perform, and fails to show reasonable cause after citation. Only then may a damaged creditor sue on the bond. Section 33-17-16 lists what that creditor must show: the claim was duly filed, the claim was not disallowed by the fiduciary or else was established by commissioners or by judgment, and a § 33-17-17 decree has been entered. An insolvent estate adds a copy of the order of distribution.

Two more routes sit next to it. Section 33-17-26 allows suit on a probate bond, other than a § 33-17-3 bond, where the fiduciary received the estate's personal property and, after being cited by the court, has not exhibited a particular inventory on oath or has refused or neglected to account on oath. Section 33-17-25 allows a suit brought for the benefit of all concerned in the estate at the instance of any interested party, who gives surety for costs to the defendant on the writ and a satisfactory bond to the probate court securing it against expenses and costs, with the writ indorsed to show the suit is brought for everyone interested. Section 33-17-15 requires the names of the people the suit benefits to appear on the writ, and § 33-17-19 sets out how judgment on a forfeited bond is apportioned among them.

None of this hands your own exposure to the surety company. The surety signs beside you, and a paid claim starts a conversation with the fiduciary who caused it.

Guardians and the Real Estate Sale Bond

Guardianship carries its own bond conditions in § 33-17-1(3), its own surety waiver in § 33-17-1.3, and one more waiver on top. Section 33-15-4.3, headed "No cash surety required," overrides § 33-17-1.3 and says surety shall not be required on any bond of a good Samaritan guardian unless the probate court determines that the circumstances so warrant surety. Anyone planning ahead for an adult family member should pair this with the Rhode Island guardianship planning guide.

Selling estate real estate triggers a second bond that surprises people. Under § 33-19-7, every executor or administrator empowered to sell or mortgage real estate as provided in § 33-19-3 shall, before making the sale or mortgage, give bond with a surety or sureties satisfactory to the court that the proceeds will be applied to the purposes for which the sale or mortgage was made. The Department of State publishes it as form PC-3.8, the bond for sale or mortgage of real estate of a deceased person or by a guardian or conservator. Section 33-17-1.2(a) reaches this one by name, waiving surety on any bond of a qualifying intestate administrator "including surety on a bond for the sale of real estate."

The Small Estate Route Takes No Bond

Rhode Island's voluntary informal administration skips the bond because it skips the appointment. Section 33-24-1 applies where a Rhode Island resident dies leaving an estate consisting entirely of personal property whose total value otherwise subject to being listed on a § 33-9-1 probate inventory, exclusive of tangible personal property the decedent owned, does not exceed $15,000. A surviving spouse, child, grandchild, parent, brother, sister, niece, nephew, aunt, uncle or any interested party of full age and legal capacity who lives in Rhode Island may file a sworn statement after thirty days from the death, provided no petition for letters testamentary or letters of administration has been filed in the probate court of the city or town where the decedent resided. Filing costs $30, and the certification of appointment costs another $5.

Section 33-24-2 runs the same track where the will names an executor, with the original will filed alongside the statement and a resident agent appointed if the named executor lives out of state.

Neither section mentions a bond, and neither issues letters, so no surety is involved on this path. The protection comes from personal liability instead: a voluntary administrator or voluntary executor is liable as an executor in his or her own wrong to all persons aggrieved by the administration, and to the rightful executor or administrator if letters are later granted. Compare the two paths in the Rhode Island probate guide before you file anything.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Rhode Island require an executor to post a probate bond?

Yes. R.I. Gen. Laws § 33-17-1 says every executor, administrator and guardian, before entering upon the execution of the trust, shall give bond to the probate court in any sum it requires, with sufficient surety or sureties. Section 33-8-1 then issues letters testamentary to the named executor only if that person is legally competent and gives bond as by law required. The bond gates the appointment.

Can a Rhode Island will waive the probate bond?

It can waive the surety only. Section 33-17-4 says an order or request in a will that an executor or guardian be exempt from giving bond or surety shall only exempt that person from giving surety. The bond itself still gets written, signed and filed with the probate clerk, and the same section lets the probate court require bond with surety or sureties at any time afterward.

When does Rhode Island excuse the surety on a probate bond?

Section 33-17-1.2(a) excuses surety on any bond of an administrator of an intestate estate when that administrator is the surviving spouse or the sole heir, or an heir at law who shows the probate court that circumstances warrant the waiver. Section 33-17-1.3(a) does the same for a guardian who is the ward's spouse, parent, child, brother, sister or other heir at law. The court may still require surety where it finds the circumstances warrant it.

How much is a Rhode Island probate bond?

Whatever sum the probate court requires. Section 33-17-1 sets the amount as any sum the court shall require, and Rhode Island publishes no statewide bond schedule or bracket table, so the probate judge of the city or town where the decedent lived fixes the figure. Under § 33-17-10(a) the court shall order further bond or sureties if the amount or the security turns out to be insufficient.

What happens if you do not file the Rhode Island bond?

You can lose the appointment. Section 33-17-5 says a fiduciary required by §§ 33-17-1 through 33-17-4 to give bond who fails for thirty days after appointment to file a bond approved by the court may be adjudged to have declined the trust. Section 33-17-7 adds that no bond is accepted until the court approves it, or the clerk examines it and finds it conforms to the court's order.

Does the Rhode Island small estate route require a bond?

No. Sections 33-24-1 and 33-24-2 let a voluntary administrator or voluntary executor file a sworn statement in the probate court of the decedent's city or town where the estate is entirely personal property worth $15,000 or less on a § 33-9-1 inventory, exclusive of tangible personal property. Neither section issues letters or takes a bond. The voluntary administrator is instead liable as an executor in his or her own wrong to anyone aggrieved by the administration.

Related Guides

Sources:

It is not legal advice.

Information current as of August 2, 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 Rhode Island can change. Consult with a qualified attorney for advice specific to your situation. Full disclaimer.

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