Utah Probate Timeline

A Utah informal probate usually runs 6 to 12 months from the application to the closing statement, and a formal or supervised case runs 9 to 18. The statutory floor is four months, measured from the date the district court first appointed a general personal representative, because Utah Code 75-3-1003(1) blocks a sworn closing statement before then.

One decision moves the Utah finish line more than anything a court does. Publishing a notice to creditors is optional here. Utah Code 75-3-801(1)(a) says the personal representative may publish, and the Utah Courts self-help page on informal probate says the same thing in plain words. Publish, and claims that arose before the death are barred three months after the date of first publication. Skip it, and the only date that bars them is one year after the death under 75-3-803(1)(a). That is the difference between an estate that closes in month five and one that cannot honestly close until month thirteen. For the dated duty list rather than the durations, read every Utah probate deadline. This page is general information about Utah law rather than advice about one estate, so confirm your own dates with the district court holding the file or a licensed Utah attorney.

Four Routes, Four Durations

Utah is a Uniform Probate Code state, so the route decides the duration before any fact about the family does. Every route runs through the district court, in all 29 counties. Utah has no separate probate court and no county-by-county forum question, so finding your district court is a matter of venue rather than of picking a court type.

The first two are exits. The third is what happens when neither exit fits, and the fourth is what happens when somebody disagrees.

The Affidavit Route Never Opens a Case

The quickest ending in Utah is the one with no court file. Utah Code 75-3-1201(1) lets a successor collect personal property 30 days after the death by presenting an affidavit stating four things: the value of the entire estate subject to administration, wherever located and less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed $100,000; 30 days have passed; no application or petition for appointment of a personal representative is pending or has been granted in any jurisdiction; and the successor is entitled to the property.

Read the measure carefully, because it is net and it covers everything. A house worth $400,000 carrying a $350,000 mortgage contributes $50,000 to the total, not $400,000. Vehicles sit on top of the test rather than inside it: 75-3-1201(3) has the Motor Vehicle Division transfer title to not more than four boats, motor vehicles, trailers or semitrailers, and for that transfer the affidavit measures the estate other than those vehicles. Shares in a water company are shut out entirely by 75-3-1201(4), which is a disqualifier for that asset rather than a question of value.

The affidavit reaches personal property. It does not convey real property, even though real property counts toward the $100,000. The Utah small estate affidavit covers the form and who can sign it.

The second exit has no dollar figure at all. Utah Code 75-3-1203 applies where the inventory and appraisal show that the whole 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 the reasonable medical and hospital expenses of the last illness. The personal representative may then distribute without notice to creditors and close under 75-3-1204, which imposes no four-month wait of its own. Sites that call the $100,000 affidavit "summary administration" have merged two different statutes into one, and the merger deletes this route.

The Front End Runs on 10 Days, 120 Hours, or 30

Nothing in Utah law puts a numeric deadline on getting the will to the courthouse. Utah Code 75-2-902 requires a person holding the will to deliver it "with reasonable promptness" after the death and on the request of an interested person. There is no ten-day lodging clock to diary, which surprises anyone arriving from a state that has one.

What does run on a clock is the appointment. Utah Code 75-3-307(1) lets the registrar appoint the applicant once 10 days have elapsed since the date of the notice required by 75-3-310, or once 120 hours have elapsed since the death where every person entitled to that notice has waived it in writing. Utah Code 75-3-302 sets up informal probate of the will the same way against the 75-3-306 notice. Where the decedent was a nonresident, 75-3-307(1) delays the order for 30 days after the death unless the personal representative appointed at the domicile is the applicant or the will directs that the estate be subject to Utah law.

Two Utah features are worth holding onto here.

• The court clerk sends the notice, not the applicant. Utah Code 75-3-306(2) and 75-3-310(2) both put the written notice to heirs and devisees on the clerk, and both say the probate or appointment will be granted after 10 days from the date of that notice. Signed waivers from everyone entitled to notice are what collapse the wait to 120 hours, which is why the Utah Courts informal probate package includes a waiver of notice form.
• Utah left out the Uniform Probate Code duty to inform heirs after appointment. There is no section in Title 75 Chapter 3 imposing a 30-day post-appointment notice on the personal representative. Utah's 75-3-705 is the inventory section instead. A calendar copied from another Uniform Probate Code state invents that duty and then chases a date Utah never set.

One clock does start at filing, and it belongs to the court. Utah Code 75-3-104.5 requires the court, within 30 days after an application or petition for probate is filed, to notify 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, so a lien or claim under 26B-3-1013 can be presented. Getting your Letters covers the application package that starts all of this.

Publication Is Optional, and It Is the Whole Timeline

Utah Code 75-3-801(1)(a) lets the personal representative publish a notice announcing the appointment and telling creditors to present claims within three months after the date of first publication. Subsection (1)(b) sets the mechanics: once a week for three successive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the county, and in accordance with 45-1-101 for three weeks.

Written notice runs on a different pair of numbers. Under 75-3-801(2) the personal representative may mail or deliver a notice to a particular creditor, and that creditor has the later of 90 days from the published notice or 60 days from the mailing or delivery.

Utah Code 75-3-803(1) then decides the real bar date. Claims that arose before the death are barred unless presented within the earlier of one year after the death, or the windows opened by 75-3-801. Put the two together and the design becomes obvious. Publishing pulls the bar forward from twelve months to about three. Declining to publish leaves the twelve-month date standing, and 75-3-1003(1)(a) then keeps the estate open, because the personal representative has to state that the claim period has expired before filing the closing statement.

Here is an ordinary informal estate where publication runs in the week the Letters issue.

Every date in that table hangs off a decision taken in the first week of the appointment. When Utah creditor claims expire sets out how a claim is presented and what happens to a late one.

Months One Through Four

The inventory is the one hard duty inside the first quarter. Utah Code 75-3-705 gives the personal representative three months after appointment to prepare an inventory of the property the decedent owned at death, in reasonable detail, showing each item's fair market value as of the date of death and the type and amount of any encumbrance. A special administrator is excused, and so is a successor whose predecessor already did it. The personal representative sends a copy to interested persons who request one and may file the original with the court. Filing is optional in Utah, so an empty court docket is not evidence that nothing happened.

Claim handling has its own pair of 60-day rules under 75-3-806(1). A claimant whose claim is disallowed has 60 days after the notice of disallowance was mailed to petition for allowance or start a proceeding, provided the notice warned of the bar. Running the other way, a personal representative who fails to mail notice of action on a claim within 60 days after the time for original presentation has expired is treated as having allowed it. Silence is not a defense.

Interest is the quiet cost of a slow estate. Utah Code 75-3-806(4) has allowed claims bear interest at the legal rate starting six months after the date of death, unless a contract says otherwise. An estate that drifts past that mark pays for the drift. What the personal representative has to do covers the duties each of these dates hangs from.

How a Utah Estate Ends

An informal administration ends on paper rather than in a courtroom. Utah Code 75-3-1003(1) lets the personal representative close by filing a verified statement, no earlier than four months after the date of the original appointment, saying three things: that the time limitation for presenting creditors' claims has expired; that the estate has been fully administered, with taxes, expenses and presented claims paid, settled or disclosed; and that a copy of the statement and a full written account went to the distributees and to every creditor whose claim is neither paid nor barred. Under 75-3-1003(3) any required accounting can be waived where all distributees consent in writing.

Two clocks then run behind the closing statement. Utah Code 75-3-1005 bars claims against the personal representative for breach of fiduciary duty six months after the closing statement is filed, leaving fraud, misrepresentation and inadequate disclosure outside the bar. Utah Code 75-3-1003(2) terminates the appointment itself one year after the filing where no proceeding is pending. Closing the estate and ending the office are separate events set a year apart.

The formal ending is 75-3-1001. The personal representative may petition for an order of complete settlement at any time, but the court cannot entertain the petition until the time for presenting pre-death claims has expired, and any other interested person has to wait one year from the original appointment. Supervised administration under 75-3-501 stays under the continuing authority of the court until an order approves distribution and discharges the representative, and 75-3-505 terminates it on the 75-3-1001 timetable. How Utah probate accounting works covers what each of those accounts has to contain.

What Pushes a Utah Estate Past a Year

1. No published notice to creditors. The one-year bar in 75-3-803(1)(a) becomes the only date, and 75-3-1003(1)(a) will not let the file close before it runs.
2. A surviving spouse's election. Utah Code 75-2-211(1) requires the elective-share petition within nine months after the death or six months after the will is probated, whichever expires later, and subsection (2) allows the court to extend that on a petition filed inside the nine months. What a surviving spouse can claim covers the augmented estate the share is measured against.
3. A will contest. Utah Code 75-3-107(1)(c) allows a proceeding to contest an informally probated will within the later of 12 months from the informal probate or three years from the death. Under 75-3-401(4) a personal representative who receives notice of a formal proceeding must stop making further distributions while it is pending.
4. A state agency claim. Where the decedent was 55 or older, the court's 75-3-104.5 notice puts the Office of Recovery Services on the file, and a Medicaid recovery claim under 26B-3-1013 survives the ordinary claim bars by way of 75-3-803(4)(d).
5. Real property that has to be sold. The market sets that pace, and the affidavit route cannot touch it.
6. Supervised administration. Every distribution waits for an order.
7. A federal estate tax return where one is required. Utah imposes no estate tax and no inheritance tax, so there is no Utah death-tax return to wait on. The estate still files the decedent's final income tax returns, and a Utah fiduciary return under 59-10-201 in any year the estate earns income.

The Outer Limits

Utah Code 75-3-107(1) bars an informal probate or a formal testacy proceeding more than three years after the death, other than a proceeding to probate a will already probated at the testator's domicile. Two narrow exceptions survive: a case dismissed because the fact of death was in doubt, and the estate of an absent or missing person for whom a conservator was appointed, which gets three years from the point the conservator can establish the death. After three years with no will probated, 75-3-107(3) makes the presumption of intestacy final on a proper petition.

The court keeps some jurisdiction past that line. Utah Code 75-3-107(4) lets it determine what property the decedent owned and appoint a representative at any time, while shutting out the homestead allowance, exempt property, the family allowance, a support allowance, the elective share and every claim other than expenses of administration. Late probate becomes a title-clearing exercise rather than a full administration.

Recipients stay exposed for longer than the estate does. Utah Code 75-3-1006(1) bars recovery from a distributee at the later of one year after the death for a creditor of the decedent, and, for anyone else including an heir or devisee, the later of three years after the death or one year after the distribution. An action to recover property received as the result of fraud sits outside all of it under 75-3-1006(2). How Utah probate works walks the whole proceeding from the application to the discharge.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does probate take in Utah?

Six to twelve months for an ordinary informal probate, and nine to eighteen months where the case is formal or supervised. The personal representative is appointed by the registrar, prepares an inventory within three months, waits out the creditor claim period, then files a sworn closing statement. Utah Code 75-3-1003(1) sets the earliest closing at four months after the date of the original appointment, so a very clean estate that publishes notice promptly can finish near month five.

When can a Utah personal representative close the estate?

No earlier than four months after the date the general personal representative was originally appointed, under Utah Code 75-3-1003(1). That is a floor rather than a schedule. The same subsection requires the personal representative to state that the time limitation for presenting creditors' claims has expired, so an estate that never published a notice to creditors has to wait out the one-year bar in 75-3-803(1)(a) before that statement can honestly be signed.

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

No. Utah Code 75-3-801(1)(a) says the personal representative may publish, and the Utah Courts self-help page on informal probate states plainly that publication is not required. Publishing bars claims three months after the date of first publication. Not publishing leaves the one-year bar in 75-3-803(1)(a) as the only date, which usually adds months to the administration rather than saving the cost of the notice.

How soon after a death can a Utah probate case be filed?

The application can go in right away, but the registrar cannot act at once. Utah Code 75-3-307(1) lets the registrar appoint once 10 days have elapsed since the date of the clerk's notice under 75-3-310, or once 120 hours have elapsed since the death where every person entitled to notice has waived it in writing. Where the decedent was a nonresident, the registrar delays the appointment until 30 days after the death unless the domiciliary personal representative is the applicant or the will directs Utah law.

What is the fastest way to settle a small Utah estate?

The affidavit under Utah Code 75-3-1201, which opens no court case at all. Thirty days after the death, a successor may present a sworn affidavit to a bank or other holder stating that the entire estate subject to administration, wherever located and less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed $100,000, that no application for a personal representative is pending or granted anywhere, and that the successor is entitled to the property. It reaches personal property only, and water company shares are excluded by 75-3-1201(4).

Is there a deadline to open probate in Utah?

Three years after the death, under Utah Code 75-3-107(1), with narrow exceptions for a proceeding dismissed over doubt about the death and for a missing person whose estate had a conservator. After three years with no will probated, 75-3-107(3) makes the presumption of intestacy final. The court keeps jurisdiction under 75-3-107(4) to decide what the decedent owned and to appoint a representative, but the homestead allowance, exempt property, the family allowance, the elective share and any claim other than administration expenses can no longer be presented.

Related Guides

• Utah Probate Guide
• Utah Probate Deadlines
• Utah Creditor Claims
• Utah Executor Duties
• Utah Small Estate Affidavit
• Utah Probate Courts by County

Sources:

• Title: Utah Code Section 75-3-107, Probate and testacy proceedings -- Ultimate time limit -- Presumption and order of intestacy. Publisher: Utah State Legislature. Publication Date: Effective 5/8/2018, accessed 2026-08-28. URL: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title75/Chapter3/C75-3-S107_2018050820180508.html
• Title: Utah Code Section 75-3-104.5, Notice to state agencies. Publisher: Utah State Legislature. Publication Date: Effective 5/7/2025, accessed 2026-08-28. URL: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title75/Chapter3/C75-3-S104.5_2025050720250507.html
• Title: Utah Code Section 75-3-306, Informal probate -- Notice requirements. Publisher: Utah State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed, accessed 2026-08-28. URL: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title75/Chapter3/C75-3-S306_1800010118000101.html
• Title: Utah Code Section 75-3-307, Informal appointment proceedings -- Delay in order -- Duty of registrar -- Effect of appointment. Publisher: Utah State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed, accessed 2026-08-28. URL: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title75/Chapter3/C75-3-S307_1800010118000101.html
• Title: Utah Code Section 75-3-705, Duty of personal representative -- Inventory and appraisement. Publisher: Utah State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed, accessed 2026-08-28. URL: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title75/Chapter3/C75-3-S705_1800010118000101.html
• Title: Utah Code Section 75-3-801, Notice to creditors. Publisher: Utah State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed, accessed 2026-08-28. URL: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title75/Chapter3/C75-3-S801_1800010118000101.html
• Title: Utah Code Section 75-3-803, Limitations on presentation of claims. Publisher: Utah State Legislature. Publication Date: Effective 5/7/2025, accessed 2026-08-28. URL: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title75/Chapter3/C75-3-S803_2025050720250507.html
• Title: Utah Code Section 75-3-806, Allowance of claims. Publisher: Utah State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed, accessed 2026-08-28. URL: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title75/Chapter3/C75-3-S806_1800010118000101.html
• Title: Utah Code Section 75-3-1001, Formal proceedings terminating administration -- Testate or intestate -- Order of general protection. Publisher: Utah State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed, accessed 2026-08-28. URL: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title75/Chapter3/C75-3-S1001_1800010118000101.html
• Title: Utah Code Section 75-3-1003, Closing estates -- By sworn statement of personal representative -- Waiver of accountings. Publisher: Utah State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed, accessed 2026-08-28. URL: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title75/Chapter3/C75-3-S1003_1800010118000101.html
• Title: Utah Code Section 75-3-1005, Limitations on proceedings against personal representative. Publisher: Utah State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed, accessed 2026-08-28. URL: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title75/Chapter3/C75-3-S1005_1800010118000101.html
• Title: Utah Code Section 75-3-1201, Collection of personal property by affidavit -- Vehicles -- Water shares excluded. Publisher: Utah State Legislature. Publication Date: Effective 5/7/2025, accessed 2026-08-28. URL: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title75/Chapter3/C75-3-S1201_2025050720250507.html
• Title: Utah Code Section 75-3-1203, Small estates -- Summary administrative procedure. Publisher: Utah State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed, accessed 2026-08-28. URL: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title75/Chapter3/C75-3-S1203_1800010118000101.html
• Title: Utah Code Section 75-2-211, Proceeding for elective share -- Time limit. Publisher: Utah State Legislature. Publication Date: Not listed, accessed 2026-08-28. URL: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title75/Chapter2/C75-2-S211_1800010118000101.html
• Title: Utah Code Section 75-2-902, Duty of custodian of will -- Liability. Publisher: Utah State Legislature. Publication Date: Effective 5/9/2017, accessed 2026-08-28. URL: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title75/Chapter2/C75-2-S902_2017050920170509.html
• Title: Utah Code Section 59-10-201, Taxation of resident trusts and estates. Publisher: Utah State Legislature. Publication Date: Effective 10/14/2025, accessed 2026-08-28. URL: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title59/Chapter10/C59-10-S201_2025101420251206.html
• Title: Informal Probate, Utah Courts self-help. Publisher: Utah State Courts, Administrative Office of the Courts. Publication Date: Not listed, accessed 2026-08-28. URL: https://www.utcourts.gov/en/self-help/case-categories/probate/informal-probate.html

It is not legal advice.