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Utah Executor Duties
Pillar GuideUtah28 min read

Utah Executor Duties

Utah executor duties in statute order: qualify for letters, take possession, prepare the three month inventory, handle claims, then close by sworn statement.

By Settled Editorial

Utah executor duties run in statutory order and start at appointment, not at the reading of the will. A personal representative qualifies and receives letters, takes possession of the property and pays the taxes on it, prepares an inventory within three months, decides whether to give notice to creditors, pays allowed claims in the order the statute sets, and closes by sworn statement.

Utah calls the office personal representative. Utah Code 75-1-201(43) defines the term to mean "an executor, an administrator, a successor personal representative, a special administrator, or a person who performs substantially the same function under the law governing the person's status." Executor is the word people use when a will named them and administrator is the word when no will did. Title 75, the Utah Uniform Probate Code, uses personal representative for both, and so does this page.

A note on the links. Every rule below was read on August 28, 2026 at the versioned section pages on le.utah.gov, which carry the section text and its effective date. Read this beside the Utah probate guide for how the proceeding itself moves, and the Utah probate deadlines reference for the dates on one page.

Utah Skips the Duty Most Executor Checklists Start With

Pages written from the model Uniform Probate Code tell a new personal representative to mail an information of appointment to the heirs and devisees within 30 days. Utah has no such duty, and its section 75-3-705 holds something else entirely.

The heir notice in Utah happens before you are appointed, and the clerk sends it. On an application for informal appointment, Utah Code 75-3-310(2) has the clerk mail written notice to the heirs and devisees who have not waived it, naming the person whose appointment is sought, the court, the filing date, and a statement that the appointment will be made after 10 days elapse. The parallel section for informal probate of the will, 75-3-306(2), works the same way. A failure to object inside those 10 days does not cost an heir the right to petition the court later.

So the first thing to check against any generic checklist you find is whether it is describing a Utah duty at all. In Utah, 75-3-705 is the inventory.

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Getting Appointed: Priority, Age, and Who Cannot Serve

Your authority comes from the appointment. Being named in the will puts you at the front of the line and nothing more.

Utah Code 75-3-203(1) sets one priority order for formal and informal proceedings alike:

  1. The person with priority under a probated will, including someone nominated by a power conferred in the will
  2. The surviving spouse, where the spouse is also a devisee
  3. Other devisees
  4. The surviving spouse
  5. Other heirs
  6. Any creditor, 45 days after the death

Two limits sit at the end of the same section. Under 75-3-203(6), nobody under the age of 21 may serve, and neither may a person the court finds unsuitable in formal proceedings. Under 75-3-203(2), an objection to an appointment can be made only in formal proceedings, so an informal appointment is challenged by opening a formal one rather than by writing to the registrar.

Priority is also transferable. Anyone entitled to letters under items 2 through 6, and anyone 18 or older who would be entitled but for age, may nominate a qualified person to act, and may renounce the right by an appropriate writing filed with the court. Where two or more people share a priority, those who do not renounce have to agree on a nominee or on an applicant in informal proceedings.

Qualifying: The Statement of Acceptance, Then Letters

Utah Code 75-3-601 is short and gates everything: before receiving letters, a personal representative qualifies by filing with the appointing court any required bond and a statement of acceptance of the duties of the office. Accepting the appointment also submits you personally to the jurisdiction of the court in any estate proceeding an interested person brings, under 75-3-602.

In an informal case the registrar makes the appointment once at least 10 days have passed since the 75-3-310 notice, or once at least 120 hours have passed since the death and everyone entitled to that notice has waived it in writing (75-3-307(1)). Where the decedent was a nonresident, the registrar holds the order until 30 days have passed since the death, unless the applicant is the personal representative appointed at the domicile or the will directs that the estate be subject to Utah law. An informal appointment establishes the office and its powers in full, and it is not subject to retroactive vacation. The Utah letters testamentary guide covers the document banks and title companies actually ask to see.

Bond Is the Exception in Utah, and 5,000 Dollars Turns It Back On

Utah Code 75-3-603(1), effective May 12, 2015, says no bond is required of a personal representative appointed in formal or informal proceedings, and then lists four exceptions:

  • A special administrator appointed without notice having been given
  • An estate under a will containing an express requirement of bond
  • A bond requested before appointment by an interested party
  • A bond required under Section 75-3-605

Subsection (2) lets the court dispense with a bond it would otherwise require, on a determination that the bond is not necessary.

Section 75-3-605 is the one that surprises people. Where bond has been excused, any person who appears to hold an interest in the estate worth more than 5,000 dollars, or any unsecured creditor with a claim over 5,000 dollars, may file a written demand with the registrar and mail a copy to you. Bond then becomes required. From the moment you receive that notice until the bond is filed, the demand is withdrawn, or the person who made it stops being interested in the estate, you have to refrain from exercising the powers of the office except as necessary to preserve the estate. Missing the bond by more than 30 days after receiving notice is cause for removal and for the appointment of a successor.

Where an amount is not already set, 75-3-604 has you file a sworn estimate of the value of the personal and real estate plus the income expected over the next year, and post a bond for not less than that estimate reduced by secured claims. The clerk may allow the amount to come down by the value of estate assets deposited with a domestic financial institution in a way that prevents unauthorized disposition. The Utah probate bond requirements guide walks through the demand, the amount and the waiver.

Your Duties Start at Appointment and Reach Backward

Utah Code 75-3-701 commences the duties and powers at appointment, then reaches back: the powers relate back in time so that acts by the appointee that benefited the estate before appointment carry the same effect as acts taken afterward. Securing the house and paying the funeral bill in week one both land inside that rule.

The same section carves out one thing a person named executor may do before any appointment exists, which is to carry out written instructions of the decedent relating to the body, funeral and burial arrangements. A personal representative may also ratify and accept acts done for the estate by other people where those acts would have been proper for a personal representative.

The Standard You Are Held To, and What Changed in 2025

Utah Code 75-3-703(1), effective May 7, 2025, makes the personal representative a fiduciary "who shall observe the standard of care applicable to trustees as described by Section 75B-2-902," and directs settlement and distribution in accordance with the will and Title 75 "as expeditiously and efficiently as is consistent with the best interests of the estate."

That cross-reference moved recently, and it is worth following. Section 75B-2-902 is the prudent investor rule, renumbered and amended into the new Title 75B by Chapter 310 of the 2025 General Session and effective the same day. It asks a trustee to invest and manage assets as a prudent investor would, considering the purposes, terms, distribution requirements and other circumstances, exercising reasonable care, skill and caution, and evaluating individual assets in the context of the portfolio as a whole rather than in isolation. The old address is gone rather than merely stale: le.utah.gov now serves Title 75, Chapter 7, the Utah Uniform Trust Code, as a stub carrying an end date of May 7, 2025, and its section pages return no version at all. A page that still sends a Utah personal representative to a Title 75 Chapter 7 section for the standard of care is pointing at an empty shelf.

Two protections travel with the duty. Under 75-3-703(2)(a) you may not be surcharged for acts of administration or distribution where the conduct was authorized at the time. Under 75-3-704 you proceed without adjudication, order or direction of the court, and you may still invoke the court's jurisdiction to settle a question about the estate. Supervised administration is the exception: under 75-3-501 it is a single in rem proceeding under the continuing authority of the court, and 75-3-504(1) leaves a supervised personal representative with all the ordinary powers except that no distribution goes out without a prior court order.

Take Possession, Pay the Taxes, Protect the Property

Utah Code 75-3-708 gives you both a right and a duty to take possession or control of the decedent's property, unless the will provides otherwise. Real property and tangible personal property may be left with or surrendered to the person presumptively entitled to it, until you judge that possession is necessary for administration. Your request for delivery settles that question: the statute makes the request conclusive evidence, in an action against an heir or devisee for possession, that your possession is necessary.

The rest of the section is the working part. You pay taxes on the property and take all steps reasonably necessary for its management, protection and preservation, and you may bring an action to recover possession or to determine title. Insurance stays in force, estate cash goes into an estate account rather than yours, and the vacant house gets watched.

The Inventory: Three Months, and Utah Does Not Make You File It

Utah Code 75-3-705 sets the clock at three months after appointment. You prepare an inventory of the property the decedent owned at the time of death, listed in reasonable detail, showing for each item its fair market value as of the date of death and the type and amount of any encumbrance on it. Special administrators are outside the duty, and so is a successor who follows a representative that already discharged it.

Where the inventory goes is the part most summaries state backwards. The statute says you shall send a copy to interested persons who request it, and that you may also file the original with the court. Filing is your option in Utah, not a requirement, so many unsupervised estates keep the inventory out of the public court file entirely.

Two companion sections finish the job. 75-3-706 lets you employ a qualified and disinterested appraiser where a value is open to reasonable doubt, use different appraisers for different kinds of assets, and record each appraiser's name and address on the inventory next to the items appraised. 75-3-707 requires a supplementary inventory when property turns up later or when a value or description in the original proves wrong or misleading, and it sends that supplement to the court if the original was filed, or to the interested persons if it was not.

The inventory is the same record the accounting is later built from, so the working version usually carries the account or title number, the date-of-death value, the document that value came from, and any beneficiary or joint owner. The Utah probate accounting guide covers the inventory and the account of receipts and disbursements as one workstream. Where the whole estate is small enough, the Utah small estate routes may reach it without a case being opened at all.

Creditors: Publishing Is Optional, the One Year Bar Is Not

Utah does not order a personal representative to publish. Utah Code 75-3-801(1)(a) says you may publish a notice announcing your appointment and address and calling on creditors to present claims within three months after the date of first publication or be forever barred. Subsection (3) then says you are not liable to any creditor or to any successor for giving or failing to give notice.

Publication runs once a week for three successive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the county, and in accordance with Section 45-1-101 for three weeks. Section 45-1-101(2)(b) is what puts the same notice on Utah's public legal notice website, which 45-1-101(3) requires to be viewable and searchable by anyone free of charge, and 45-1-101(5) caps what the newspaper may charge at its own average advertisement rate with the website posting carrying no additional cost. Written notice to a particular creditor is separate: under 75-3-801(2) that creditor has 90 days from the published notice, or 60 days from your mailing or delivery, whichever is later.

The reason to publish anyway sits in 75-3-803(1), effective May 7, 2025. Claims that arose before the death are barred unless presented within the earlier of one year after the death or the 75-3-801 period. No publication means no shorter period, so the estate carries live claim exposure for a full year. Claims arising at or after the death run on their own clock under 75-3-803(3), and the section preserves several routes that a bar does not touch, including enforcement of a mortgage or lien, liability covered by insurance to the limits of that coverage, and medical assistance recovery under Title 26B, Chapter 3, Part 10.

One notice you do not have to send yourself: under 75-3-104.5, within 30 days after an application or petition for probate is filed, the court notifies the Office of State Debt Collection where the decedent was at least 18, and the Office of Recovery Services where the decedent was at least 55. The Utah creditor claims guide walks presentment, allowance and disallowance step by step.

Allowing, Disallowing, and Paying Claims

Utah Code 75-3-806(1) puts two 60 day clocks on the table, running in opposite directions. Mail a claimant a notice of disallowance that warns of the impending bar, and the claim is barred unless that claimant petitions for allowance or starts a proceeding within 60 days of your mailing. Say nothing for 60 days after the time for original presentation has expired, and your silence has the effect of a notice of allowance. Allowed claims carry interest at the legal rate beginning six months after the date of death, unless a contract sets its own rate.

Payment waits for the clock. 75-3-807(1) has you begin paying allowed claims when the earliest of the 75-3-803 limits expires, and only after making provision for homestead, family and support allowances, for claims presented but not yet allowed or under appeal, for unbarred claims that may still come in, and for the costs and expenses of administration.

You may pay a just unbarred claim earlier, and 75-3-807(2) prices that choice. Pay before the time limit without requiring the payee to give adequate security for a refund, or pay through negligence or willful fault in a way that costs another claimant their priority, and you are personally liable to the claimant you injured.

The order itself is Utah's own, and it diverges from the model order most national content repeats. 75-3-805(1), effective May 3, 2023, puts reasonable funeral expenses first, ahead of the costs and expenses of administration, then debts and taxes with preference under federal law, then reasonable and necessary medical and hospital expenses of the last illness including medical assistance where Section 26B-3-1013 applies, then debts and taxes preferred under other Utah law, then all other claims. Within a class there is no preference, and a claim already due gets none over a claim not yet due. The Utah debt payment priority guide has the full ladder with the insolvency arithmetic.

Powers, Self-Dealing, and When the Bill Lands on You

Utah Code 75-3-710(1), effective May 7, 2025, hands you the same power over the title to estate property that an absolute owner would have, held in trust for the creditors and others interested in the estate, and subsection (2) lets you exercise it without notice, hearing or court order unless Title 75 says otherwise.

Three sections put the boundaries on that power:

  • 75-3-711. An improper exercise of power makes you liable to interested persons for damage or loss from the breach, to the same extent as a trustee of an express trust.
  • 75-3-712. A sale or encumbrance to you, your spouse, your agent or your attorney, or to a corporation or trust in which you hold a substantial beneficial interest, and any transaction affected by a substantial conflict of interest on your part, is voidable by any interested person other than one who consented after fair disclosure. Two things save it: the will or a contract the decedent entered expressly authorized the transaction, or the court approved it after notice to interested persons.
  • 75-3-808. You are not individually liable on a contract properly entered in your fiduciary capacity, unless you failed to reveal that capacity and identify the estate in the contract. On obligations arising from ownership or control of estate property, and on torts committed during administration, you are individually liable only where you are personally at fault.

Read together, the three sections point the same way. A signature that names the fiduciary capacity and the estate is what 75-3-808 protects, disclosure before the fact is what 75-3-712 turns on, and court approval after notice is one of the two things that section says will save a transaction affected by a conflict of interest. Whether a particular transaction falls inside that rule is a question for a licensed Utah attorney.

What a Utah Personal Representative Gets Paid

Utah publishes no percentage and no fee schedule. Utah Code 75-3-718(1) entitles the personal representative and the attorney to reasonable compensation for their services, and then does something most states do not: where a petition seeks approval of that compensation and no interested person objects, the statute makes reasonable compensation the amount sought in the petition.

If someone does object, the court sets the figure from the quality, quantity and value of the services rendered to the estate and the circumstances under which they were rendered, including the practice for other fiduciaries who are in similar circumstances. Under 75-3-718(2), the petitioner sends a copy of the petition to all interested persons at least 10 days before the hearing, by certified, registered or first class mail or by hand delivery.

Subsection (3) covers a will that fixes your pay. Where there is no contract with the decedent about compensation, you may renounce the will's provision before qualifying and take reasonable compensation instead, and you may renounce all or part of your fee at any point by a written renunciation filed with the court. Separately, 75-3-720 lets an interested person ask the court to review whether hiring an attorney, auditor, investment advisor or other agent was proper, whether that person's compensation was reasonable, and whether the compensation you set for your own services was reasonable. Anyone who took excessive compensation can be ordered to refund it.

Because 75-3-718(1) measures the fee by the quality, quantity and value of the services rendered, contemporaneous time records are what a Utah court has to look at when an interested person objects. Time records document what portions of your compensation relate to the filing fee, publication, bond and appraisal.

To see what the reasonableness test asks of a Utah estate before you write the petition, work through the Utah executor compensation worksheet. It states what Utah does not do, which is set any percentage, and what the unopposed-petition rule in 75-3-718(1) means for the figure you ask for.

Closing: Four Months, a Sworn Statement, and a Six Month Tail

Utah closes most estates on paper. Utah Code 75-3-1003(1) opens with "Unless prohibited by order of the court and except for estates being administered in supervised administration proceedings when all of the distributees of the estate consent in writing," and then lets a personal representative close by filing a verified statement no earlier than four months after the date of original appointment of a general personal representative.

The statement says three things:

  1. The time limitation for presentation of creditors' claims has expired
  2. The estate is fully administered, by payment, settlement or other disposition of all claims presented, of the expenses of administration, and of estate, inheritance and other death taxes, with assets distributed to the persons entitled. Where claims remain undischarged, the statement says whether distribution went out subject to possible liability with the agreement of the distributees, or sets out the other arrangements in detail
  3. A copy went to all distributees and to every known creditor or claimant whose claim is neither paid nor barred, and a full written account of the administration went to the distributees whose interests it affects

Two dates follow the filing. Under 75-3-1003(2), if no proceeding involving you is pending in the court one year after the closing statement is filed, your appointment terminates on its own. Under 75-3-1005, claims by successors and unbarred creditors against you for breach of fiduciary duty are barred unless a proceeding starts within six months after the filing of the closing statement, and that shield does not reach fraud, misrepresentation or inadequate disclosure related to the settlement of the estate.

Accountings can be waived. Under 75-3-1003(3), any accounting required by that section or by 75-3-1001 or 75-3-1002 may be waived where all the distributees consent in writing.

Where you want a binding order instead of a sworn statement, 75-3-1001(1) allows a petition for an order of complete settlement of the estate. You may petition at any time and any other interested person may petition after one year from the original appointment, and no petition is entertained until the time for presenting pre-death claims has run. The court can determine testacy, approve or compel an accounting and distribution, construe the will, determine heirs, adjudicate the final settlement and discharge you from further claim or demand of any interested person. With no will in the file, distribution follows the Utah intestate succession rules.

If Things Go Wrong: Removal and Successors

Utah Code 75-3-611(1) lets a person interested in the estate petition for removal for cause at any time, and the court sets a hearing. Once you receive notice of removal proceedings you stop acting except to account, correct maladministration or preserve the estate. Cause exists where removal would serve the best interest of the estate, where the personal representative or the person who sought the appointment intentionally misrepresented material facts in the proceedings leading to it, or where the personal representative disregarded a court order, became incapable of discharging the duties, mismanaged the estate or failed to perform any duty of the office.

A replacement picks up where you stopped. Under 75-3-715, a successor personal representative holds the same power and the same duty to complete the administration and distribution as expeditiously as possible, with one carve out: a successor does not exercise a power the will made personal to the executor it named.

Common Questions

What are the duties of an executor in Utah?

Utah calls the job personal representative. Qualify by filing a statement of acceptance and any required bond under Utah Code 75-3-601, take possession and control of the property and pay the taxes on it under 75-3-708, prepare an inventory within three months of appointment under 75-3-705, decide whether to publish notice to creditors under 75-3-801, allow or disallow presented claims under 75-3-806, wait for the earliest claim deadline in 75-3-803 to run and then pay in the 75-3-805 order under 75-3-807, and close by filing a verified statement no earlier than four months after your original appointment under 75-3-1003.

Is an executor the same as a personal representative in Utah?

They name one office. Utah Code 75-1-201(43) defines personal representative as an executor, an administrator, a successor personal representative, a special administrator, or a person who performs substantially the same function under the law governing that person's status. Title 75 says personal representative throughout, so executor is the everyday word for the version where a will named you, and administrator is the word for the version where no will did. Every duty in Chapter 3 Part 7 applies the same way to both.

When is the Utah estate inventory due, and does it get filed with the court?

Within three months after appointment, and filing is your choice. Utah Code 75-3-705 tells a personal representative who is not a special administrator, and not a successor to someone who already did this, to prepare an inventory of the property the decedent owned at death, listed in reasonable detail, with fair market value as of the date of death and the type and amount of any encumbrance on each item. The same section says you shall send a copy to interested persons who request it and that you may also file the original with the court. Utah Code 75-3-706 lets you employ a qualified and disinterested appraiser and put that appraiser's name and address on the inventory.

Does a Utah personal representative have to post a bond?

Usually no. Utah Code 75-3-603(1) says no bond is required of a personal representative appointed in formal or informal proceedings, with four exceptions: a special administrator appointed without notice having been given, an estate under a will that expressly requires bond, a bond requested before appointment by an interested party, and a bond required under Section 75-3-605. Subsection (2) lets the court dispense with a required bond on a finding that it is not necessary. Under 75-3-605, a person who appears to hold an interest in the estate worth more than 5,000 dollars, or an unsecured creditor with a claim over that amount, can file a written demand with the registrar that turns the bond back on.

How much does a Utah personal representative get paid?

Reasonable compensation, with no percentage schedule anywhere in Utah law. Utah Code 75-3-718(1) entitles the personal representative and the attorney to reasonable compensation for their services. If a petition seeks approval of that compensation and no interested person objects, the statute makes reasonable compensation the amount sought in the petition. On an objection the court sets the figure from the quality, quantity and value of the services rendered to the estate and the circumstances under which they were rendered, including the practice for other fiduciaries in similar circumstances. Under 75-3-718(2) a copy of the petition goes to all interested persons at least 10 days before the hearing.

Does a Utah personal representative have to publish notice to creditors?

No. Utah Code 75-3-801(1)(a) says a personal representative may publish a notice to creditors, and 75-3-801(3) adds that the personal representative is not liable to any creditor or successor for giving or failing to give notice. Publishing shortens the window: it gives creditors three months from the date of first publication to present claims or be barred, running once a week for three successive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the county and, under Section 45-1-101, on Utah's public legal notice website. Skipping publication leaves the outer bar in 75-3-803(1)(a), which is one year after the date of death.

When can a Utah estate be closed?

No earlier than four months after the date of original appointment of a general personal representative, under Utah Code 75-3-1003(1). The verified closing statement says the creditor claim period has expired, that the estate was fully administered by paying, settling or otherwise disposing of the claims presented, the expenses of administration and any death taxes, and that assets went to the persons entitled. It also says a copy went to every distributee and to every known creditor whose claim is neither paid nor barred, with a full written account to the distributees affected. If no proceeding involving the personal representative is pending one year after filing, the appointment terminates on its own under 75-3-1003(2).

This guide is general information about Utah estates. It is not legal advice. Confirm anything that affects your own matter with the district court handling the estate, the current text of the statute, or a licensed Utah attorney.

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Information current as of August 28, 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 Utah can change. Consult with a qualified attorney for advice specific to your situation. Full disclaimer.

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