First Steps After a Death in Utah

A medical professional has to pronounce the death. If the death was expected under hospice care, the hospice nurse can usually pronounce it; if it was unexpected, call 911. Then choose a licensed Utah funeral home or cremation provider to transport and care for your person. The funeral home files the death record with the Utah Office of Vital Records and Statistics and usually orders the first certified copies for you.

Lock the residence, keep utilities and property insurance paid, and do not hand out belongings yet. Utah property passes at death to the devisees under the will, or to the heirs if there is no will, but it passes subject to creditor rights, the homestead allowance, exempt property, the family allowance, the surviving spouse's elective share, and administration (Utah Code 75-3-101(2)). Nothing is safely anyone's until those are sorted out.

Look for the original signed will, any codicils, trust documents, deeds, vehicle titles, account statements, and life insurance policies. Utah does NOT impose a fixed number of days on whoever holds the will. Utah Code 75-2-902 requires the custodian, after the death and on the request of an interested person, to deliver the will with reasonable promptness to a person able to secure its probate, or to an appropriate court. Do not copy a 10-day or 30-day lodging rule from another state; Utah has none, and Utah also has no procedure for depositing a will with a court while the person is still alive.

Certified copies come from the Utah Office of Vital Records and Statistics, part of the Utah Department of Health and Human Services. Under the fee schedule effective July 1, 2026, the search and first certified copy cost $35.00, each additional copy of the same record ordered the same day costs $10.00, and a reissue within 90 days of the original request costs $3.00. You can order online, in person at a local health department with same-day service, or by mail, which takes at least three weeks. Order more than you think you need: banks, insurers, the DMV, and the district court each want one.

Probate in Utah is heard by the DISTRICT COURT in all 29 counties. There is no separate probate court, no probate division, and no county-by-county forum question: Utah Code 75-1-302 gives the court jurisdiction over all subject matter relating to estates of decedents, and Utah Code 78A-5-102(1) gives the district court original jurisdiction in all matters civil and criminal. Utah Code 78A-5-101(2)(b) puts a district court in the county seat of each county. Venue is the district court of the county where the person lived at death, or the county where they owned property (Utah Code 75-3-201). Filing is with the clerk of the district court.

Separate property held only in the decedent's name from property that passes by title or by contract. In Utah a payable-on-death or joint account passes to the surviving party (Utah Code 75-6-104), a registration in beneficiary form passes to the named beneficiary (Utah Code 75-6-308), a recorded transfer on death deed passes real estate outside probate (Utah Code 75-6-405), and a registration of a vehicle or boat in the names of two or more individuals is deemed joint tenancy with right of survivorship unless the title says otherwise (Utah Code 75-6-201(4)). Life insurance, retirement accounts, and pension benefits pass under Utah Code 75-6-201(1). What is left over is the probate estate, and it is that list which decides your route.

Utah Code 75-3-1201 lets a successor collect the decedent's debts, tangible personal property, and instruments by affidavit, with no court case and no filing fee, once 30 days have passed since the death, no application or petition for appointment of a personal representative is pending or has been granted in any jurisdiction, and the value of the entire estate subject to administration, wherever located, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed $100,000. The affidavit is NOT filed with a court: you sign it in front of a notary and give it to the bank or other holder. The Utah State Courts publish the form as 1110XX, Affidavit for Collecting Personal Property in a Small Estate Proceeding. Two limits matter. The affidavit cannot transfer real estate, even though real estate counts toward the $100,000. And the Utah State Courts small estates page states a stricter requirement than the statute does, that there is no real property at all, so a bank may apply the stricter reading.

Vehicles ride on top of the $100,000 rather than inside it. Utah Code 75-3-1201(3) requires the Motor Vehicle Division to transfer title to not more than four boats, motor vehicles, trailers, or semitrailers on a notarized affidavit stating that the entire estate OTHER THAN those vehicles, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed $100,000. The form is the Utah State Tax Commission's TC-569C Survivorship Affidavit, presented at a DMV office. The Utah State Courts also publish an Affidavit for small estate matters (motor vehicle). Utah has no transfer-on-death beneficiary designation for a vehicle title.

Most uncontested Utah estates use informal probate: an application to the registrar of the district court, decided without a hearing. Utah Code 75-3-307 lets the registrar appoint once at least 10 days have elapsed since the clerk's notice under Utah Code 75-3-310, or once at least 120 hours (five days) have elapsed since the death if everyone entitled to that notice has waived it in writing. If the decedent was a nonresident, the registrar waits 30 days from the death unless the applicant is the personal representative appointed at the domicile or the will directs Utah law. Formal probate before a judge is the track for a dispute over the will, the appointment, or the distribution.

The Utah State Courts publish the informal probate packet. Without a will the required forms are the cover sheet 1158XX, the application 1001ES, the statement of informal probate 1006ES, the acceptance of appointment 1008ES, and Letters of Administration 1009ES. With a will they are 1158XX, application 1002ES, statement 1007ES, acceptance 1008ES, and Letters Testamentary 1010ES. The original will is filed with the application. Utah Code 75-3-203 sets priority for appointment: the person named in a probated will first, then the surviving spouse who is a devisee, then other devisees, then the surviving spouse, then other heirs, then any creditor 45 days after the death. Nobody under 21 may serve. The court filing fee is $375 under Utah Code 78A-2-301(1)(a), the same in every county.

Apply for a free estate employer identification number from the IRS, then open an account in the estate's name, such as Estate of Jane Doe. Keep estate money completely separate from your own and keep a receipt for every payment and every distribution. You will need the EIN before you can file a federal Form 1041 or the Utah TC-41.

This is where Utah differs from most states. Utah Code 75-3-801(1)(a) says the personal representative MAY publish a notice to creditors, and 75-3-801(3) says the personal representative is not liable to a creditor or to a successor for giving or failing to give notice. Publishing is what starts the three-month claim bar, which is usually why you would do it: without publication, creditors are limited only by the one-year outer bar in Utah Code 75-3-803(1)(a). Publication runs once a week for three successive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the county, and the notice also has to appear on Utah's public legal notice website under Utah Code 45-1-101.

Within three months after appointment, the personal representative prepares an inventory of the property the decedent owned at death, in reasonable detail, with each item's fair market value at the date of death and the type and amount of any encumbrance (Utah Code 75-3-705). Utah then diverges from most states: you SEND a copy to interested persons who request it, and you MAY file the original with the court. Filing is optional. Utah has no separate duty on the personal representative to send an information-of-appointment letter to heirs and devisees; that notice is the court clerk's job under Utah Code 75-3-310.

A creditor notified by publication has three months from the first publication (Utah Code 75-3-801(1)(a)). A creditor you notified in writing has 90 days from the published notice or 60 days from the mailing, whichever is LATER (Utah Code 75-3-801(2)). Every claim that arose before the death is barred unless presented within the EARLIER of one year after the death or those periods (Utah Code 75-3-803(1)(a)). If assets are short, Utah Code 75-3-805 pays reasonable funeral expenses FIRST, then costs and expenses of administration, then debts and taxes preferred under federal law, then last-illness medical and hospital expenses including medical assistance recovery, then debts and taxes preferred under other Utah law, then everything else. That funeral-first order is the reverse of what most probate content says.

Tell the Social Security Administration (1-800-772-1213), notify each bank and brokerage, and file the life insurance claims. File the decedent's final federal Form 1040 and Utah TC-40. The estate files a Utah TC-41 fiduciary return only if it is required to file a federal Form 1041; Utah Code 59-10-201(2)(a) says a resident estate not required to file that federal return is not subject to the Utah tax. Utah has NO estate tax and NO inheritance tax: the Utah State Tax Commission states the inheritance tax was eliminated after December 31, 2004, and Utah Code Title 59, Chapter 11 was repealed effective May 6, 2026. A federal Form 706 is due only for the largest estates.

In an unsupervised administration the personal representative closes by filing a verified closing statement with the court no earlier than four months after the date of original appointment, stating that the time for presenting creditors' claims has expired, that the estate has been fully administered, and that a copy went to every distributee and to known unpaid, unbarred creditors (Utah Code 75-3-1003(1)). Utah also lets all the distributees WAIVE any required accounting in writing (Utah Code 75-3-1003(3)). If no proceeding is pending a year after the closing statement is filed, the appointment terminates.

Utah has a second small estate route that has no dollar figure at all. Utah Code 75-3-1203 applies when the inventory and appraisal show the value of the entire estate, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed the SUM of the homestead allowance, exempt property, the 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 notice to creditors and close under Utah Code 75-3-1204 at any time after that. The allowance components are indexed to the year of death, so this floor moves every January while the $100,000 affidavit figure does not.