First Steps After a Death in South Dakota

A medical professional has to pronounce the death. If the death was expected under hospice care, the hospice team can usually handle this; if it was unexpected, call 911. Then choose a funeral home or cremation provider to take your person into their care and help with the death record. Ask how many certified death certificates they can order for you.

Lock the residence, keep the utilities and property insurance paid, and do not hand out belongings yet. Under SDCL 29A-3-101, a person's real and personal property passes at death under the will or, with no will, to the heirs, but always subject to the homestead allowance, exempt property and family allowance, the rights of creditors, the surviving spouse's elective share, and administration. Nothing is safely anyone's until those are sorted out.

Look for the original signed will and any codicils, plus trust documents, deeds, vehicle titles, account statements and life insurance policies. A will may have been deposited with a court for safekeeping during the person's lifetime (SDCL 29A-2-515). Whoever holds a will must, on request of an interested person, deliver it with reasonable promptness to the court or to someone able to probate it, and a person who willfully fails to deliver it is liable for the damage caused (SDCL 29A-2-516). South Dakota sets no fixed number of days.

Certified copies come from the South Dakota Department of Health. Each certified copy costs $15. Order in person or by mail from the Department of Health office at 221 West Capitol Avenue in Pierre, in person at ANY county register of deeds, or online or by phone through VitalChek, which adds its own fees. Certified copies go to the registrant's spouse, children, parents, guardian, next of kin or an authorized representative (SDCL 34-25-52). Order more than you think you need: banks, insurers, the county treasurer and the register of deeds each want one.

South Dakota probate is heard by the CIRCUIT COURT (SDCL 29A-1-201(8)), which has original jurisdiction in all matters of probate and settlement of estates (SDCL 16-6-9). There is no separate probate court. Venue is the county where the decedent was domiciled at death, or for a nonresident, any county where they had property (SDCL 29A-3-201). You file with the clerk of courts, a Unified Judicial System office, and informal probate applications go to that clerk (SDCL 29A-3-301). The UJS Court Finder lists the clerk's address and phone for all 66 counties; Oglala Lakota files at the Fall River office in Hot Springs, Todd at the Tripp office in Winner and Buffalo at the Brule office in Chamberlain.

Sums left in a joint account belong to the surviving party unless there is clear and convincing evidence of a different intention when the account was opened (SDCL 29A-6-104(1)). A payable-on-death account goes to the named payee (SDCL 29A-6-104(2)). Securities registered in transfer-on-death form go to the beneficiary (SDCL 29A-6-307). Land covered by a recorded transfer-on-death deed goes to its beneficiary (SDCL 29A-6-415), and a vehicle or boat title with a named beneficiary goes to that beneficiary (SDCL 32-3-81). Life insurance and retirement benefits follow the beneficiary designation. What is left in the decedent's name alone is the probate estate, and that list decides your route.

SDCL 29A-3-1201 lets a successor collect money owed to the decedent, tangible personal property and stock by affidavit, with no court case and no court fee, once 30 days have passed since the death, if the value of the entire estate, wherever located, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed $100,000, no application or petition to appoint a personal representative is pending or granted anywhere, and the decedent owed no debt to the Department of Social Services for medical assistance for nursing home or other medical institutional care. Real property counts toward the $100,000, but this affidavit moves only personal property.

South Dakota has a second affidavit, for real property only. Sixty days after the death, the successors can file an affidavit with a certified death certificate at the register of deeds in every county where the land lies, if the decedent's interest in all South Dakota real property is worth $50,000 or less, measured on the assessment rolls for non-agricultural land and at fair market value for agricultural land. Every claiming successor signs it, no personal representative may have been sought or appointed, and the same Department of Social Services debt statement is required (SDCL 29A-3-1203). It has no cap on the rest of the estate.

If the title names a transfer-on-death beneficiary, the beneficiary submits an affidavit verifying the death and the Department of Revenue issues a new title (SDCL 32-3-81); the Department says to bring a copy of the death certificate. Without a beneficiary, the Department of Revenue's Form 1013, Succession Affidavit, carries the $100,000 small-estate test for a vehicle or boat, filed with the title application at the county treasurer. The title fee is $10 plus a $2 technology fee.

Most uncontested South Dakota estates are opened by a verified application to the clerk of courts. SDCL 29A-3-301 lists what it must state, including the decedent's birthdate, date of death and domicile and the names and addresses of the heirs and devisees. The clerk may informally probate a will or appoint a personal representative only once 120 hours have passed since the death (SDCL 29A-3-302 and 29A-3-307); for a nonresident decedent the appointment waits 30 days unless an exception applies. The fee to open an estate is $122 in every county.

SDCL 29A-3-203 sets the order: the person named in a probated will, then a surviving spouse who is a devisee, then other devisees, then the surviving spouse, then other heirs, then any other qualified person once 45 days have passed since the death. Nobody under 18 may serve. Before letters issue, the personal representative files an acceptance of office and any required bond (SDCL 29A-3-601). Since July 1, 2025 a bond is not required unless the court concludes one is in the best interests of the estate (SDCL 29A-3-603).

Within 14 days after appointment, mail the heirs and devisees the information SDCL 29A-3-705 requires: your name and address, whether bond was filed, the court where the papers are, a copy of any probated will, and a statement that the estate is administered without court supervision. Within the same 14 days you must also send written information of the appointment to the Department of Social Services in Pierre, including the decedent's Social Security number, and then certify to the court that you did. That notice is not filed with the court.

Apply for a free employer identification number for the estate from the IRS, then open an account in the estate's name. Keep estate money completely separate from your own, and keep a receipt for every payment and every distribution. You will need the EIN for the estate's federal Form 1041.

SDCL 29A-3-801 says the personal representative MAY publish a notice to creditors once a week for three successive weeks in a legal newspaper in the county, which bars claims not presented within four months after first publication. Separately, the personal representative SHALL give written notice to every creditor who is known or reasonably ascertainable, giving them the later of four months after the appointment or 60 days after the notice. Without either, the outer bar is three years after the death (SDCL 29A-3-803).

List the property the decedent owned at death, in reasonable detail, with each item's fair market value at the date of death and any encumbrance (SDCL 29A-3-706). The deadline is six months after appointment or nine months after the death, whichever is later. Send a copy to any interested person who asks. Filing the original with the court is optional.

South Dakota's homestead allowance is the family home itself, as provided in chapter 43-31, not a dollar figure: the surviving spouse may keep possession and occupy the whole homestead until it is otherwise disposed of according to law (SDCL 43-31-13). The spouse also takes the property and cash described as exempt in chapter 43-45, or the children jointly if there is no spouse (SDCL 29A-2-402). And the spouse and dependent children get a reasonable family allowance during administration; the personal representative may set it without court approval at up to $18,000 in a lump sum or $1,500 a month for one year (SDCL 29A-2-403). These come ahead of creditors.

If the estate cannot pay everything, SDCL 29A-3-805 pays costs and expenses of administration first, then reasonable funeral expenses, then debts and taxes preferred under federal law, then debts and taxes preferred under other South Dakota law, then everything else. There is no separate last-illness class. A claim you disallow is barred unless the creditor acts within 60 days after your notice of disallowance, if the notice warns of that (SDCL 29A-3-806).

South Dakota has no state income tax, no estate tax and no inheritance tax; the Department of Revenue says the inheritance tax was repealed effective July 1, 2001 and that there is no estate tax, and the inheritance and estate tax chapters were repealed in 2014. So there is no South Dakota final income tax return or fiduciary return. File the decedent's final federal Form 1040 and, if the estate has income, a federal Form 1041. A federal Form 706 is due only for the largest estates.

In an unsupervised estate the personal representative files a verified closing statement no earlier than four months after the original appointment, stating that the creditor-claim time has expired or all known creditors have been paid, the estate is fully administered and distributed, and that a copy and a full accounting went to the heirs and devisees entitled to distribution and to known unpaid creditors (SDCL 29A-3-1003). Those entitled to the accounting may waive it in writing. If nothing involving the personal representative is pending one year after the statement is filed, the appointment ends.