Settling an estate in Louisiana
An executor in Louisiana has to work through the District Court (Succession Proceedings) and a long list of tasks that have nothing to do with the court. This page sets out what Louisiana law actually requires at each step, with the section it comes from and the date we last read it.
- Probate court
- District Court (Succession Proceedings)
- Small-estate shortcut
- Estates of $200,000 or less may qualify for a simplified small-estate procedure.
- Creditor claim period
- No fixed window — see the notice-to-creditors step below for what actually protects you here.
- Typical timeline
- 6–18 months
- State death tax
- None — no state estate tax and no state inheritance tax
- Community property
- Yes — this changes the answer, so characterise each asset before dividing anything.
Immediate
Obtain certified death certificates
Louisiana writes the succession into the statute, and the notary with it. Under La. R.S. 40:41(C) a certified copy of a death certificate goes to the person named in the certificate or a member of the immediate or surviving family. It also goes to a funeral director acting at the request of the immediate or surviving family, but only up to one year following the date of death — so that route closes on an anniversary most families never hear about. Subsection C(6) covers a notary assisting an heir with the preparation of a small succession, which reflects how Louisiana actually settles small estates. Other subsections add public retirement systems, a representative of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, organ procurement organizations, and the Department of Children and Family Services for children in their custody. Two practical notes. The funeral director usually orders the first batch as part of their service, so ask them how many they have already requested before you order more — families routinely pay twice. And order more than you think: banks, insurers and transfer agents often keep the copy you give them rather than returning it. Confirm the current fee on the state’s own page at the moment you order, because fees change without notice.
La. R.S. 40:41·last read 2026-08-25
Locate the will (or confirm there is none)
Louisiana wills take forms other states do not use, and there is a filing duty most guides leave out. Under La. Civ. Code art. 1575 an olographic testament is one entirely written, dated and signed in the testator’s own handwriting, and it is subject to no other requirement as to form. Under art. 1576 a notarial testament is prepared in writing, dated, executed before a notary public in the presence of two witnesses, and signed by the testator, each witness and the notary. In both, the signature and the date may appear anywhere in the document, and the date may be clarified by extrinsic evidence. So a document that would fail as a will elsewhere may be perfectly good here, and the reverse. Now the duty, which was added in 2024. Under La. C.C.P. art. 2853 a person who has possession of a document purporting to be the testament of someone who has died shall present it to the court, with a petition praying that it be filed in the record of the succession proceeding. That applies even where the holder believes the document is not the valid testament, or has doubts about it — the call is the court’s to make, not the custodian’s. And the article protects whoever files it: presenting a purported testament does not make them vouch for its authenticity or validity, and does not stop them arguing later that it is invalid. So if you are holding a will you think is wrong, file it and say so. Take anything you find to a Louisiana succession attorney rather than deciding yourself whether it counts.
La. Civ. Code arts. 1575, 1576; La. C.C.P. art. 2853·last read 2026-08-27
Short-term
Claim the family allowances you are entitled to
Louisiana’s version is an advance against your own share rather than money on top of it, which is the opposite of most states. Under La. C.C.P. art. 3321, where a succession is sufficiently solvent, the surviving spouse, heirs or legatees are entitled to a reasonable periodic allowance in money for their maintenance during the period of administration, if the court concludes that such an allowance is necessary — provided the sums advanced are within the amount eventually due them. The article then says it plainly: such payments shall be charged to the share of the person receiving them. So it solves a timing problem rather than enlarging what the family finally gets. You need not wait for the succession representative to offer one. A surviving spouse, heir or legatee may compel payment by contradictory motion against the representative. Notice of a petition for authority to pay an allowance, or of a motion to compel one, must be published once, and any opposition must be filed within ten days of that publication.
La. C.C.P. art. 3321·last read 2026-08-25
Notify beneficiaries and keep them informed
Louisiana makes notice opt-in, and that is the single most important thing for an heir here to know. Under La. C.C.P. art. 3091 an interested person who wants to be told that someone has applied to be appointed administrator must petition the court in which the succession has been opened, or may be opened, for that notice. The petition has to comply with article 3092, bear the number and caption of the succession proceeding, and be docketed and filed by the clerk in that record. Timing is what makes it bite. Where the petition for notice is filed within ten days of the death, or before the application for appointment, the applicant for appointment must serve the notice as article 3093 provides. So waiting to be told is not a strategy in Louisiana — asking, in the right form and early, is. Getting this wrong rarely costs money directly — it stalls the case. An estate that cannot show notice was properly given can be held open, and the appointment itself can be reopened, so keep proof of what you sent, to whom, and on what date.
La. C.C.P. art. 3091·last read 2026-08-25
Determine if probate is required
Louisiana measures this in gross, and the figure most guides quote is the wrong one. Under La. C.C.P. art. 3421 a small succession is any of three things. The first is the ordinary case: a person who died domiciled in Louisiana leaving property with a gross value of $200,000 or less, valued as of the date of death. The second is the ancillary succession of someone domiciled outside Louisiana, and there the figure is $125,000 of Louisiana property — that lower number belongs to non-residents and does not cap a Louisiana family. The third has no cap at all: where the death occurred at least twenty years before the affidavit is executed, the succession qualifies whatever the property is worth. Read gross literally. Debts and mortgages do not reduce the figure, so a house with a large mortgage counts at its full value and can push an otherwise modest succession over the line. That is the opposite of how most states measure it. Article 3431 then sets out when court can be skipped altogether. A Louisiana domiciliary who died intestate. A Louisiana domiciliary who died testate leaving no immovable property in the state, if the surviving spouse and everyone who would inherit under the will or without one agree to waive probate of the testament. And a person domiciled elsewhere who died intestate, or whose testament has already been probated by the court of another state.
La. C.C.P. arts. 3421, 3431·last read 2026-08-27
Legal Process
File a petition with the probate court
Louisiana does not have probate — it has a succession, and the words differ all the way down. Under La. C.C.P. art. 2811 the proceeding to open a succession is brought in the district court of the parish where the deceased was domiciled at the time of death; in New Orleans that is the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans. Where the deceased was not domiciled in Louisiana, the succession may be opened in the district court of any parish where immovable property is situated — or where movable property is situated, if they owned no immovable property in the state at death. Where there is a will, article 2851 is the opening move: any person who considers that he has an interest in opening the succession may petition a court of competent jurisdiction for the probate and execution of the testament. Note how low that bar is set — an interest the petitioner considers he has, not one he must first prove. There is no personal representative in the usual sense either; Louisiana uses a succession representative, an executor or an administrator. If a form or a guide uses the word probate, it was not written for Louisiana.
La. C.C.P. arts. 2811, 2851·last read 2026-08-27
Inventory all assets and debts
Louisiana lets you replace the formal inventory with a sworn list you prepare yourself. Under La. C.C.P. art. 3136, wherever an inventory of succession property would otherwise be required by law, the person at whose instance it would be taken may instead file in the succession proceeding a detailed descriptive list of all succession property. The list must be sworn to and subscribed by the person filing it, must show the location of all items of succession property, and must set out the fair market value of each item as at the date of the death. Paragraph B removes any doubt about permission: the privilege of filing a descriptive list in lieu of an inventory may be exercised without judicial authority. That is what spares most Louisiana successions the notary, appraisers and witnesses that articles 3131 through 3135 would otherwise involve. Two things that apply everywhere. Values are as of the date of death, not today — a house that has risen since is still listed at what it was worth then. And the inventory is the document everything else is measured against: fees, bond, and every later distribution. It is also what beneficiaries most often challenge, so take the time to get it right rather than filing a rough figure you intend to fix later.
La. C.C.P. art. 3136·last read 2026-08-25
Publish notice to creditors
Louisiana has no creditor deadline at all, which makes it unlike every other state here. Under La. C.C.P. art. 3241 a creditor of a succession under administration may submit a claim to the succession representative for acknowledgment and payment in due course of administration, and no particular form is required beyond its being in writing. Article 3242 puts the deadline on you rather than on them: within thirty days of a claim being submitted you must acknowledge or reject it, in whole or in part, in writing, dated and signed, and notify the claimant — and failing to do either within those thirty days counts as a rejection. Article 3245 then lets a creditor suspend the running of prescription against the claim for up to ten years, by delivering formal written proof to the representative or filing it in the succession record or the parish mortgage records. Do not treat any short period here as a safe harbour. Two things to hold on to. Publication is what starts the clock in most states, so an estate where nobody published can stay exposed to claims far longer than the family expects. And a known creditor usually has to be told directly — publication alone does not bind someone whose name and address you could reasonably have found.
La. C.C.P. arts. 3241, 3242, 3245·last read 2026-08-25
Administration
Identify and close digital accounts
Louisiana is the one state we cannot give you a citation for, and saying so is more useful than guessing. Louisiana does have a law on a fiduciary’s access to a deceased person’s digital accounts, and published summaries describe a duty on the custodian to give a succession representative access within thirty days of receiving letters. But the sources disagree about where it is codified, and three separate candidate citations we checked turned out to be about partnerships, about a succession representative’s liability for distributions, and about something else again. We are not going to print a section number we could not read. Treat any citation you see for this, including in other summaries, as unverified until counsel confirms it. What holds in Louisiana regardless: where the person used the provider’s own online tool, that direction governs ahead of the will, and the federal privacy statutes still bar a custodian from releasing the content of communications without consent. Check the accounts for a legacy contact setting first, and put the citation question to the attorney handling the succession.
Louisiana digital assets law — citation unverified·last read 2026-08-25
Financial Settlement
Pay valid debts and expenses
Louisiana is the one state where you do not pay the bills — you ask the judge for permission, in public, and wait. Under La. C.C.P. art. 3302, the succession representative starts paying estate debts once three months have run from the death, though the court may authorise an urgent payment at any time and without publication. To pay, art. 3303 requires a petition for authority with a tableau of distribution annexed, listing the debts to be paid. Where the funds in hand will not cover everything, the tableau must show the total available and list the proposed payments according to the rank of the creditors’ privileges and mortgages. Article 3304 requires notice of the filing to be published once in the parish. Under art. 3307 an opposition may be filed at any time before homologation; if none is filed the court may homologate seven days after publication, and the representative pays only after the delay for a suspensive appeal has run. The ranking itself comes from the law of privileges. La. C.C. art. 3276 puts the charges against a succession — funeral charges, law charges, the lawyer’s fee for settling the succession, the thousand dollars secured in certain cases to the surviving spouse or minor heirs, and all claims arising after the death — ahead of the debts the deceased contracted, and none of those need be recorded. So the Louisiana caution is a different one entirely. Do not pay anything — the funeral and the costs of administration included — outside the tableau process, unless the court has specifically authorised it as an urgent payment. Paying a creditor without homologation is the mistake here, whatever their rank, and the ranking only decides who goes on the tableau.
La. C.C.P. arts. 3302, 3303, 3304, 3307; La. C.C. art. 3276·last read 2026-08-25
File required tax returns
Louisiana repealed its inheritance tax outright and keeps an estate transfer tax that collects nothing. The repeal is unusually clean to read: Act 822 of the 2008 Regular Session repealed Part I of Chapter 1 of Subtitle IV of Title 47, comprising R.S. 47:2401 through 2426, in its entirety, and section 3 of the act made that repeal effective on 1 January 2010. What remains is the estate transfer tax. R.S. 47:2431 levies it on all estates subject to federal estate taxation, and R.S. 47:2432(A) sets the amount: wherever there is a credit allowable under the Internal Revenue Code for state death taxes, the maximum amount of that credit is paid to Louisiana. Congress replaced the credit with a deduction, so the maximum amount is zero. Louisiana does tax income, so a succession that earns income during administration will have a Louisiana fiduciary return to file. None of that removes the federal returns: the deceased’s final income tax return, and Form 1041 for income the estate itself earns during administration. And it does not help with property in another state, which may carry that state’s own death tax and its own filing.
La. R.S. 47:2431, 47:2432; Acts 2008, No. 822·last read 2026-08-25
Distribution
Distribute assets to heirs
Louisiana is a civil law jurisdiction and almost nothing written for the other 49 states applies. Two concepts change everything. Usufruct: under art. 890, if the deceased leaves descendants, the surviving spouse does not inherit the deceased’s half of the community property outright — the spouse receives a usufruct, a right to use and enjoy it, to the extent the deceased did not dispose of it by testament, while the descendants hold naked ownership. Anyone telling you the spouse simply owns it is describing a different state. And the article sets out when it ends: the usufruct terminates when the surviving spouse dies or remarries, whichever comes first. A widow or widower who remarries loses it to the children, which is not what most people expect and is worth knowing before anyone makes plans. Forced heirship: a portion of the estate, the legitime, is reserved for descendants aged 23 or younger, or of any age if permanently incapacitated — one quarter for a single forced heir, one half shared between two or more. That reservation generally cannot be defeated even by a will. Do not distribute anything in Louisiana without advice; the vocabulary alone will mislead you. Louisiana does this through a doctrine of its own called unworthiness, so the vocabulary will not match anything you read about other states. Under La. Civ. Code art. 941 a successor is declared unworthy if convicted of a crime involving the intentional killing or attempted killing of the deceased, or judicially determined to have participated in the intentional, unjustified killing or attempted killing. The action to declare a successor unworthy is brought in the succession proceedings themselves, not separately. And the article adds something no other state in this area says: an executive pardon, or a pardon by operation of law, does NOT affect unworthiness. So a pardon does not restore the inheritance. Louisiana answers who counts as a child in the Civil Code, and both answers are unusual. Article 199 is the most generous adoption rule in this checklist. On adoption the adopting parent becomes the parent “for all purposes” and the filiation with the legal parent is terminated — and then: “The adopted child and his descendants retain the right to inherit from his former legal parent and the relatives of that parent.” No stepparent condition, no requirement that anybody have died, no limit to one side of the family. An adopted Louisianian keeps the right to inherit from the former parent AND that parent’s relatives. Article 197 then sets the hardest kind of deadline there is. A child may prove paternity even where presumed to be another man’s child, and after the alleged father’s death must do it by clear and convincing evidence — but “for purposes of succession only, this action is subject to a peremptive period of one year”, running from the day of the death. Peremption is not prescription. Article 3461 says that “peremption may not be renounced, interrupted, or suspended”, so once the year is gone there is nothing left to argue. Article 198 does the father’s side on the same footing. Within one year of the birth where the child is presumed another man’s, longer where the mother deceived him in bad faith, and in every case no later than one year from the day of the CHILD’S death — “The time periods in this Article are peremptive.”
La. Civ. Code arts. 197, 198, 199, 890, 941, 1493, 1494, 1495, 3461·last read 2026-09-09
Close Estate
File a final accounting and close the estate
A Louisiana succession ends with a judgment of possession, and the court signs it on the spot. Under La. C.C.P. art. 3061(A) the court shall render and sign the judgment immediately if it finds, from the petition for possession and from the record of the proceeding, that the petitioners are entitled to the relief prayed for. Subsection (B) sets out what the judgment does. It recognises the petitioners as the heirs, legatees, surviving spouse in community or usufructuary, and sends the heirs or legatees into possession of the property the deceased owned at death. It also recognises the surviving spouse in community as entitled to possession of an undivided half of the community property, and of the other half to the extent of any usufruct over it. It must also state the last known address of at least one of those sent into possession, though the article says failure to include it does not affect the validity of the judgment. Under subsection (C), where petitioners are sent into possession under a testamentary usufruct or trust, the judgment automatically incorporates all its terms without having to recite them. This is the document that actually transfers ownership, and the one banks, title companies and buyers will ask to see, so it is not paperwork to skip once the assets are distributed. There is no discharge of an executor in the sense other states use.
La. C.C.P. art. 3061·last read 2026-08-27
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EstateMate is not a law firm and this is not legal advice. Every note above cites the section it came from and the date it was last read, so you can check it yourself. Statutes change, and the right answer can turn on facts specific to your family — when something looks close to the line, talk to a Louisiana succession attorney.