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Rhode Island Executor Duties
Pillar GuideRhode Island22 min read

Rhode Island Executor Duties

Rhode Island executor duties in order: qualify in your city or town, post bond, file the 90-day inventory, run the six-month creditor window, then close.

By Settled Editorial

A Rhode Island executor works a fixed order: qualify in the Probate Court of the city or town where the decedent lived, file the bond, advertise, return the 90-day inventory of personal property, notify known creditors, wait out the six-month claim window that runs from first publication, file the nine-month tax statement, then account and close.

Start with the words Rhode Island uses, because they change what you search for. You are an executor when a will names you and the court admits the will. You are an administrator when there is no will and the court appoints you under § 33-8-8. Personal representative is the umbrella term chapter 33-11 uses for both, so it is safe here in a way it is not in every neighboring state. Rhode Island never adopted the Uniform Probate Code, so UPC section numbers and UPC vocabulary belong somewhere else.

Rhode Island also has no county probate court. Its five counties are geographic lines, and they run nothing. Probate is heard by a court in each of the 39 cities and towns, and § 8-9-9 gives every probate court jurisdiction "in the town or city in which it is established." § 8-9-6 makes the town or city clerk the clerk of that probate court unless a charter says otherwise, so the person who takes your filing usually sits in city hall rather than a courthouse. The directory of Rhode Island Probate Courts by town maps each city and town to its court, its clerk and its session schedule.

Each court writes its own local administrative rules covering session dates, docketing and filing deadlines. Read them, and then stop worrying that your town is different on the law: § 33-22-29 says no local administrative rule may "expand, contract or otherwise vary any specific provision of title 33 or any other provision of the General Laws." The deadlines below are the same in Woonsocket and in New Shoreham.

Three Clocks Run Before Anyone Is Appointed

Rhode Island starts counting at the death. Three separate 30-day periods run before a court appoints anybody, and each one lands on a different person.

  • Whoever holds the will. Every person with custody of a will, other than a probate clerk, delivers it to the probate court with jurisdiction, or to the executors named in it, within 30 days after notice of the death (§ 33-7-5). An executor who receives the will that way gets 30 days of their own to file it with the court. The clock runs from notice, not from the death, which matters when a will surfaces in a safe deposit box months later.
  • The named executor. A person named as executor who holds the will and neglects to present it for probate within 30 days after the death, or within 30 days after learning of the nomination, is deemed to have declined the office (§ 33-8-3). There is no hearing and no order. The nomination simply lapses.
  • The intestate family. Where there is no will, administration goes to the surviving spouse or one or more of the next of kin, or to both together, if they are suitable and competent. If they neglect to apply within 30 days after the death, the court may grant administration to any suitable person on the petition of a party in interest (§ 33-8-8).

Letters testamentary issue on the probate of the will, to the executor named in it, if that person is legally competent and gives bond as by law required (§ 33-8-1). Read the last clause twice. The bond is what turns an appointment into authority.

Rhode Island runs one statewide set of forms. § 33-22-16 has the forms prescribed for the probate courts and furnished by the Secretary of State without charge, and every court may require parties to use them. You open with PC-1.5 to probate a will, PC-1.1 for administration, or PC-1.3 for an ancillary petition. The Department of State's forms page also warns that several forms are not available online, and tells you to contact the probate court for those.

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Post the Bond, Because a Will Waiver Waives Only the Surety

Every executor, administrator and guardian gives bond to the probate court, in any sum the court requires and with sufficient surety, before entering upon the execution of the trust (§ 33-17-1). The bond conditions you to return a true inventory, to administer the property according to law and the will, and to render true accounts on oath.

Here is the trap that catches most first-time executors. A will that excuses you from bond does not excuse the bond. § 33-17-4 reads: an order or request in a will that an executor shall be exempt from giving bond or surety "shall only exempt the executor or guardian from giving surety." You still file a bond. What the will drops is the paid corporate surety behind it, and the court may require surety from you at any time regardless.

Two other exits sit in the same chapter:

  • Surviving spouse or sole heir. No surety is required on the bond of an administrator of an intestate estate where the administrator is the surviving spouse or the sole heir, or an heir at law who satisfies the court that the circumstances warrant a waiver (§ 33-17-1.2). The court weighs the number of heirs, how they are related, whether there is friction among them, and the size of the estate.
  • The 30-day forfeiture. An executor or administrator who fails to file a court-approved bond within 30 days after appointment may be adjudged to have declined the trust (§ 33-17-5).

The statewide bond forms are PC-3.1A for a corporate-surety-exempted appointment and PC-3.1B where a corporate surety signs. The rules on when a bond is excused work through the amount the court sets and how to get a surety released later.

Return the 90-Day Inventory, and Leave the House Out of It

You return the inventory to the probate court under oath within 90 days after your appointment, or within a longer period the court allows (§ 33-9-1). It covers all the personal property, tangible and intangible, and all claims, rights, causes of action and other assets other than real property, appraised as of the date of the decedent's death.

Two things in that sentence get printed wrong constantly. The clock runs from your appointment and not from the death, so a slow start moves the whole window instead of shortening it. And Rhode Island excludes real property from the inventory rather than appraising it in. The decedent's house is not an inventory item, which also keeps it out of the filing-fee base that § 33-22-21 measures on personal property alone.

You do the appraising. § 33-9-4 says the property comprised in the inventory shall be appraised by the executor or administrator, and the court appoints appraisers only on the petition of a party in interest, and then only for the assets that petition names. So hire your own appraiser for a closely held business, a boat or a coin collection, and keep the report with the file.

One quiet exclusion is worth knowing before a family fight starts over it. The decedent's wearing apparel, not counting jewels and watches, stays out of the inventory entirely and is not an asset for paying debts (§ 33-9-2). If the will does not give it away, it passes according to law.

On forms, the statewide PC series publishes a Supplemental Inventory (PC-10.4) and a petition an interested party files to force an inventory or account (PC-5.2), and no initial inventory sheet. Ask your city or town clerk which sheet that court wants before you draft one. The rules on how to account to the beneficiaries cover the schedules an inventory and an account each carry.

The Creditor Clock Starts at First Publication

Nearly every mid-administration deadline in Rhode Island runs from the first publication of notice, not from the date of death. Get the advertisement out and the rest of the calendar falls into place.

  • The advertisement. Where notice is required and no special provision is made for it, notice runs by advertisement once a week for at least two weeks, with the first advertisement published at least 14 days before the first hearing date named in the notice, in a newspaper published or distributed in the county (§ 33-22-11). Pages that promise three consecutive weeks are describing another state.
  • The mailed notice. Where a creditor's identity is known to you or reasonably ascertainable, you take reasonable steps within a reasonable time after qualification to see that the creditor receives notice of the commencement of the estate (§ 33-11-5.1). Mailing the statutory form, PC-9.9, first class to the last known address gives you a conclusive presumption of compliance.
  • The EOHHS notice. Where the decedent was 55 or older at death, that same section sends the notice to the Executive Office of Health and Human Services under § 40-8-15, which carries the state's Medicaid claim against the estate. Age is the trigger. Whether the decedent ever received Medicaid is not the question you answer at this step.
  • Six months to present. Claims are presented within six months from the first publication or are forever barred (§ 33-11-5(a)).
  • The 60-day rule inside that window. A creditor who missed the deadline through accident, mistake, excusable neglect or lack of adequate notice may petition for leave to file late. Your mailed notice counts as adequate only if it went out at least 60 days before the six months expired (§ 33-11-5(b)). Mail it in month five and you hand every missed creditor an argument.
  • Six months and 30 days to disallow. That is your window to disallow a timely claim, by filing a statement with the clerk of the probate court and notifying the claimant personally or by registered or certified mail (§ 33-11-14, form PC-7.5). A claim presented after the six months gets a shorter fuse: 30 days from presentation.
  • Two years on any suit. No personal representative answers a creditor's suit unless it started within two years of the first publication and before any order of distribution (§ 33-11-50).

A creditor whose claim you disallow sues in district or superior court depending on the amount, no later than 30 days after the six months expire, or 30 days after notice of the disallowance or its affirmance by the probate court, whichever is later (§ 33-11-48). Work each claim through the six-month creditor window before a single distribution leaves the estate account.

Pay in the Statutory Order, and Do Not Pay Early

After the six months expire and after you file the statement of disallowed claims, you pay the allowed claims in the order of priority, having first provided for costs and expenses of administration, taxes, allowances, claims pending determination or appeal, and claims not yet barred that may still arrive (§ 33-11-19).

Where the estate cannot cover everything, § 33-12-11 ranks the bills. Read its opening line first: the ranking applies after deducting the charges of administration and any property set off and allowed to the widow and family. Administration charges and the family set-off come off the top and are not classes in the list.

ClassClaim
1Necessary funeral charges
2Necessary expenses of the last sickness
3Debts due to the United States
4Debts due to Rhode Island, and all state and town taxes
5Past and future child support obligations under § 33-11-51
6Wages for labor in the six months before the death, capped at $1,000 per person
7Proceeds due the Rhode Island state lottery under § 42-61-6.2
8Other debts filed within six months of the first notice
9All other debts

Inside a class the estate cannot pay in full, creditors take ratably, and no creditor of a class sees a dollar until every earlier class is paid in full. The order of paying debts walks the nine classes with the insolvent-estate procedure that sits behind them.

Paying early is where a Rhode Island executor gets personally exposed. Section 33-11-19(c) lets you pay any just claim that has not been barred at any time, with or without formal presentation, and then makes you personally liable to another allowed claimant who is injured by that payment in two situations: you paid inside the claim period without requiring the payee to indemnify the estate for a refund, or your negligence or willful fault deprived the injured claimant of priority. Outside that, § 33-9-27 keeps your own property out of reach, because writs of attachment and execution run against the goods, chattels, rights and credits of the deceased in your hands rather than against you.

One funeral-side allowance is easy to miss. An executor of a solvent estate may erect a headstone, and with the court's permission a monument and a reasonable sum to a cemetery corporation or a town for perpetual care. Every reasonable payment under that section is allowed as part of the funeral charges when the court settles your account (§ 33-9-6).

File the Nine-Month Tax Statement, Then Clear the Lien

Every executor, administrator and heir at law files, within nine months after the death, a statement under oath with the tax administrator showing the full and fair cash value of the estate, the amounts paid out for claims, expenses, charges and fees, and the names and addresses of everyone entitled to take a share (§ 44-23-1).

The filing fee is banded by date of death. A death before January 1, 2025 carries a $50 fee. A death on or after that date carries none, under subsections (b) and (c) of the same section. The Division of Taxation's own estate tax page answers the fee question correctly and then still lists "a check for the filing fee in the amount of $50.00" among the return attachments, so trust the statute over the checklist.

Form RI-706 covers every death on or after January 1, 2015, taxable or not. Rhode Island measures its threshold on the gross estate before deductions: more than $1,838,056 for a 2026 death and more than $1,802,431 for a 2025 death. A mortgage reduces the taxable estate and does nothing to the gross figure that decides whether you cross the line, so an estate whose only real asset is a heavily mortgaged house can still sit above the threshold. Run the numbers and file Form RI-706 on the right schedule.

Then get the lien off the real estate. When a statement shows the decedent owned real property, the tax administrator notifies the recorder of deeds or the city or town clerk, who notes in the land records that all real property belonging to the decedent is impressed with a lien under chapter 44-23 (§ 44-23-12). A non-taxable estate still files to obtain the discharge on Form T-77 and the Notice of No Tax Due the probate court asks for. Skip it and the closing on the house stalls.

Assume the state already knows the estate exists. Every probate clerk notifies the tax administrator within 30 days after granting letters, giving the decedent's name, your name and address, and the amount of the bond the court required (§ 44-23-6).

Record the Certificate of Descent

When real property is devised, distributed, set out to a devisee or heir, divided by all the interested persons, or descends to the heirs or the spouse, the executor or administrator causes a certificate of descent to be recorded in the land evidence records of every city or town where the decedent's real property sits (§ 33-9-29). Recorded, it is prima facie evidence of the facts it states about that real estate.

The statewide form is PC-10.6, Certificate of Devise or Descent. The section names no deadline, so record it as soon as the distribution settles. A title searcher who cannot find the certificate finds a gap in the chain instead, and the buyer's lawyer will call you about it years later.

What Rhode Island Pays an Executor

One sentence of statute governs the whole question. Executors and administrators "shall, also, be allowed in their accounts such compensation for their services as the probate court shall consider just" (§ 33-14-8). Rhode Island publishes no percentage schedule, no tiered table and no statutory cap. You apply on form PC-7.4, Application for Approval of Fiduciary's and Attorney's Fees, and the court decides what is just.

What a "just" fee looks like in practice, and what other states pay for the same work, is laid out in Rhode Island executor compensation.

Two consequences follow. Keep contemporaneous time records from week one, because your account is the only place the court sees the work you did. And answer a citation. An executor or administrator who neglects or refuses to render an account within 30 days after the time named in a citation is held accountable for the full value of the personal property, the proceeds of real estate sales and the rents received, with interest, and is entitled to no compensation for their services (§ 33-14-5).

Close the Estate

You return an account to the probate court on completion of the period of administration, and at other times the court orders on a citation under § 33-14-4 (§ 33-14-1). No interim accounting is required unless an interested party asks for one, and the court may excuse an interim account for good cause.

Rhode Island gives you two ways out:

  1. The account. File form PC-7.1 with the certification on PC-7.2, showing the charges and credits and the liquidated balance due to or from you.
  2. The affidavit of completed administration. Open to an executor or administrator who is the sole beneficiary of the estate, or who files a release from each beneficiary, on evidence that the Rhode Island estate and inheritance taxes are satisfied, the funeral bill is paid and every claim filed against the estate has been satisfied. The form is PC-7.3.

Either route needs one more paper before the court will close the file. § 33-11-5.2 requires the fiduciary to submit an affidavit swearing either that notice of the commencement of the estate went to all known or reasonably ascertainable creditors, and to the Executive Office of Health and Human Services where the decedent was 55 or older, or that no such notice was required because the estate had no known or reasonably ascertainable creditors and the decedent was under 55. The form is PC-10.14.

Run this list before you ask the court to close:

  1. Did the will reach the court within 30 days of notice of the death?
  2. Is an approved bond on file, with the surety question settled under § 33-17-4?
  3. Was the inventory returned within 90 days of your appointment, covering personal property only?
  4. Did the notice of commencement reach every known creditor, and EOHHS if the decedent was 55 or older, at least 60 days before the six months ran out?
  5. Are the allowed claims paid in the § 33-12-11 order, with administration charges taken off the top?
  6. Is the § 44-23-1 statement filed, and the estate tax lien discharged on any Rhode Island real estate?
  7. Is the certificate of descent recorded in every city or town where the decedent owned land?
  8. Is the § 33-11-5.2 affidavit filed alongside the account or the affidavit of completed administration?

This guide is general information about Rhode Island estates. It is not legal advice. Confirm anything that affects your estate with the clerk of the probate court in your city or town, or with a licensed Rhode Island attorney.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the duties of an executor in Rhode Island?

Qualify in the Probate Court of the city or town where the decedent lived, file a bond before you act, advertise notice of your appointment, return an inventory of personal property within 90 days, mail notice of the commencement of probate to known creditors and to EOHHS if the decedent was 55 or older, let the six-month claim window run from first publication, pay allowed claims in the R.I. Gen. Laws § 33-12-11 order, file the § 44-23-1 statement within nine months of the death, then account and close.

When is the Rhode Island estate inventory due?

Within 90 days after your appointment, or a longer period the probate court allows. R.I. Gen. Laws § 33-9-1 measures the deadline from the appointment rather than the death, and the inventory covers all personal property, tangible and intangible, plus claims, rights, causes of action and other assets other than real property, appraised as of the date of death. The house stays out of it.

How long do creditors have to file a claim against a Rhode Island estate?

Six months from the first publication of notice, not from the date of death, or the claim is forever barred under R.I. Gen. Laws § 33-11-5(a). A creditor who missed the window may petition to file late, and your mailed notice of commencement counts as adequate notice only if it went out at least 60 days before the six months expired. Section 33-11-50 bars any creditor suit filed more than two years after the first publication.

Does a Rhode Island executor have to post a bond?

Yes. R.I. Gen. Laws § 33-17-1 requires every executor, administrator and guardian to give bond to the probate court before entering upon the trust. A will clause excusing bond does less than it sounds: § 33-17-4 says an order or request in a will exempting the executor from bond or surety exempts that person from giving surety only. Section 33-17-5 lets the court treat a failure to file an approved bond within 30 days of appointment as a declination of the office.

How much does a Rhode Island executor get paid?

Whatever the probate court considers just. R.I. Gen. Laws § 33-14-8 allows executors and administrators such compensation for their services as the court finds just, and Rhode Island publishes no percentage schedule, tiered table or statutory cap. You apply on form PC-7.4. An executor who ignores a citation to account for 30 days forfeits compensation entirely under § 33-14-5.

Which Rhode Island Probate Court settles the estate?

The Probate Court of the city or town where the decedent lived. Rhode Island has no county probate court, and its five counties are geographic only. R.I. Gen. Laws § 8-9-9 gives every probate court jurisdiction in the town or city in which it is established, and § 8-9-6 makes the town or city clerk the clerk of that court, so you file with the city or town clerk.

Sources:

It is not legal advice.

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Settled Estate is not a law firm and does not give 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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