Franklin Probate Division Guide

Full Administration

Option

The court allows the will and issues letters, the executor or administrator files an inventory within 60 days of appointment, gives notice to creditors under the Rules of Probate Procedure, accounts within one year and annually after that, pays claims, and closes on a decree of distribution.

No threshold. This is the default route for any estate that does not qualify for a small estate under 14 V.S.A. chapter 81 or for waiver of administration under chapter 80.

✓ No attorney required

Small Estate

Option

A small estate under 14 V.S.A. chapter 81 is a REAL probate estate opened on a petition, not an out-of-court affidavit. It is simply a lighter version of administration: the petition, the list of interested persons, the filing fee, an original death certificate, an inventory, an affidavit of paid and outstanding funeral expenses and debts, a bond without surety in the amount of the fair market value of the estate, and the will if there is one. Letters run for one year and the court may extend that on motion for good cause.

Fair market value of not more than $45,000.00 AND the estate consists entirely of personal property (a time-share estate as defined by 32 V.S.A. § 3619(a) is allowed).

✓ No attorney required

Affidavit Procedure

Option

In lieu of filing the petition required by V.R.P.P. 80.3(a)(1), an interested person may pay the small-estate entry fee and file an affidavit accompanied by a death certificate and the will, attesting to the matters set out in Rule 80.3(a)(5) and (6) and that notice has been given to, or consent obtained from, any other interested persons. If the court is satisfied with the facts attested to, it may order the asset or assets distributed under the will or the laws of descent and survivor's rights.

✓ No attorney required

Waiver of administration (14 V.S.A. chapter 80)

Option

Vermont's other shortcut, and it is not a small-estate route: 14 V.S.A. § 1851 makes it available to estates OTHER THAN small estates, so the two are mutually exclusive by their own terms. Because it is not value-based, a large estate can use it and a modest one may not. The order waives the inventory, waives or discharges the bond and dispenses with further filings except the final affidavit of administration. Like the small-estate route it is closed to any estate holding Vermont real property, so a house takes an estate to full administration on both paths.

No dollar threshold at all. Qualification turns on RELATIONSHIP, ROLE AND ASSET TYPE: the movant must be the sole beneficiary under the will or the sole heir if intestate, must be the sole fiduciary, and the decedent must have owned no real property in Vermont.

✓ No attorney required

Enhanced Life Estate Deed

Option

Vermont has NO transfer-on-death deed. It has the Enhanced Life Estate Deed Act, 27 V.S.A. chapter 6 - a Lady Bird deed. A validly executed and recorded ELE deed does not affect the grantor's ownership rights or creditors, transfers no present interest to the grantee, and does not expose the property to the grantee's creditors. The grantor may convey the property during life without the grantee's joinder or consent. If not conveyed during the grantor's life, the interest vests in the grantee at death subject to encumbrances of record.

Not applicable. A recorded enhanced life estate deed passes the described real property outside probate at the grantor's death.

✓ No attorney required