Settling an estate in Massachusetts
An executor in Massachusetts has to work through the Probate and Family Court and a long list of tasks that have nothing to do with the court. This page sets out what Massachusetts law actually requires at each step, with the section it comes from and the date we last read it.
- Probate court
- Probate and Family Court
- Small-estate shortcut
- Estates of $25,000 or less may qualify for a simplified small-estate procedure (personal property only — it will not transfer real estate).
- Creditor claim period
- 1 year
- Typical timeline
- 9–18 months
- State death tax
- a state estate tax
Immediate
Obtain certified death certificates
Massachusetts restricts a specific list of records, and an ordinary death record is not on it. Under G.L. c. 46 § 2A, examination of records of births out of wedlock, of fetal deaths, and of certain marriage records is not permitted except on a proper judicial order, or at the request of the person concerned, their attorney, parent, guardian or conservator, or a person whose official duties entitle them to the information. Section 19 makes the town clerk’s record of a death prima facie evidence of the facts recorded, with one carve-out worth knowing: anything in a death record referring to the question of liability for causing the death is not admissible in evidence. Section 19 also gives a right most states do not — on request, the clerk or the registrar shall make an abstract of the record without the parents’ names on it. We read §§ 2A and 19 and not the whole of chapter 46, so confirm the counter practice with the town clerk. 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.
G.L. c. 46 §§ 2A, 19·last read 2026-08-25
Locate the will (or confirm there is none)
Massachusetts gives a fixed thirty-day deadline that runs automatically from notice of the death. Under G.L. c. 190B § 2-516 a person having custody of a will must deliver it within thirty days after notice of the death to a person able to secure its probate, and only if no such person is known does it go to an appropriate court. Note the order: the first destination is a human being who can act, not the courthouse. Someone who wilfully fails to deliver is liable to any person aggrieved for the damages sustained, and someone who refuses after a court order in a proceeding brought to compel delivery is subject to penalty for contempt of court. Thirty days from notice, not from the death itself. If you are an heir and you believe someone is sitting on the will, do not wait to see whether the clock starts: here it is already running, and it started with the death or with their knowledge of it, not with anything you do. A written request is therefore not what creates the duty — it is what evidences the breach. Make it in writing anyway and keep a dated copy, because that is what turns a delay into something you can prove.
G.L. c. 190B § 2-516·last read 2026-08-19
Short-term
Claim the family allowances you are entitled to
Massachusetts gives a smaller figure than most of its neighbours but adds a right people rarely ask about. Under G.L. c. 190B § 2-403 the surviving spouse takes exempt property worth up to $10,000 over and above any security interests, in household furniture, automobiles, furnishings, appliances and personal effects, in addition to any benefit or share passing by the will, by intestate succession or by way of elective share. The same section lets the surviving spouse remain in the deceased’s house for up to six months after the death without being chargeable for rent, which matters most in the weeks when nothing else has been settled. Section 2-404 adds a discretionary family allowance — a reasonable sum out of the estate for the maintenance of the spouse and the children the deceased was obliged to support or was in fact supporting. It may not run beyond a year if the estate cannot discharge its allowed claims, and it is not chargeable against a share unless the will provides otherwise. Section 2-405 fixes what the personal representative can do without going to court: a lump sum of up to $18,000, or instalments of up to $1,500 a month for one year. Anything more needs a court order.
G.L. c. 190B §§ 2-403, 2-404, 2-405·last read 2026-08-21
Notify beneficiaries and keep them informed
Massachusetts is the exception to everything written about this step elsewhere: you notify before you file, not after you are appointed. Under G.L. c. 190B § 3-306 the petitioner must give written notice seven days prior to petitioning for informal probate or appointment — to all heirs and devisees, to anyone with a prior or equal right to appointment who has not waived it in writing, and to any existing personal representative. Notice goes by ordinary mail, and a Certificate setting out the names and addresses of everyone notified is prima facie evidence that you did it. You must also publish once in a newspaper designated by the register of probate. Plan for that week: filing early is not an option. 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.
G.L. c. 190B § 3-306·last read 2026-08-18
Determine if probate is required
Massachusetts calls this Voluntary Administration and the vehicle is the part people miss. Under G.L. c. 190B § 3-1201 the estate must consist entirely of personal property — any real estate closes this route outright — and the value test is “a motor vehicle of which the decedent was the owner, and other personal property not exceeding $25,000“. Read that carefully: the car sits outside the $25,000 rather than inside it, so a $20,000 vehicle plus $24,000 of accounts still qualifies. Thirty days must have passed and no petition to appoint a personal representative may have been filed. One provision worth knowing for families of people who were in state care: where the person was receiving services from the Department of Mental Health, the Department of Developmental Services or the Division of Medical Assistance, that department may designate someone to act as voluntary personal representative.
G.L. c. 190B § 3-1201·last read 2026-08-18
Legal Process
File a petition with the probate court
Massachusetts adopted the MUPC and offers three tracks; work out which one you are on before assuming you face the full process, because the difference in time and cost is large. Voluntary administration under G.L. c. 190B § 3-1201 is the lightest, and the test is more generous than it first looks. The estate must consist entirely of personal property — any real estate rules the route out — and the cap is $25,000 of personal property plus one motor vehicle the deceased owned, which sits outside the $25,000 rather than counting towards it. Two conditions families miss: you must wait 30 days from the death, and it is available only if no petition for appointment of a personal representative has already been filed. You file a sworn statement with the court for the county where they lived, scheduling every asset you know of with its estimated value. Informal probate is decided by a magistrate without a hearing, for uncontested estates. Formal probate goes before a judge where there is a dispute or a complication.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 190B § 3-1201·last read 2026-08-19
Inventory all assets and debts
Massachusetts gives you three months and has a rule for successors that catches people out. Under G.L. c. 190B § 3-706 a personal representative must within three months of appointment prepare an inventory of the property owned at death, in reasonable detail, showing fair market value as of the date of death and any encumbrance. But a successor personal representative values the property as of the date of their own appointment, not the date of death — so if you have taken over from someone else, you are working to a different valuation date than they were, which matters where markets have moved. The inventory is filed with the court or mailed to the interested persons. 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.
G.L. c. 190B § 3-706·last read 2026-08-18
Publish notice to creditors
Massachusetts runs a completely different clock from every other state, and it is the single most important thing to know here. Under G.L. c. 190B § 3-803 a creditor’s action must be commenced within one year after the date of death — not within some months of a publication. And before that year expires the creditor must either have served process on the personal representative in hand (or had service accepted), or have filed with the register a notice naming the estate, the creditor, the amount claimed and the court. So the deadline runs from the death itself and nothing you do or fail to publish moves it. Note the trap in the other direction too: the year runs even while nobody has been appointed. Two things to hold on to. In most states publication is what starts the creditor clock, which is why so much guidance warns that an estate which never published stays exposed for longer. That reasoning does not apply in Massachusetts: the year runs from the death whether or not anyone ever publishes, so failing to publish does not lengthen your exposure — and publishing does not shorten it. 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.
G.L. c. 190B § 3-803·last read 2026-08-19
Administration
Identify and close digital accounts
Massachusetts is the state we cannot give you a clean answer on, and saying so is more useful than guessing. Every other state has an act of this kind, and the routine advice — get letters of appointment, produce the will, invoke the statute — assumes one. We searched chapter 190B, the Massachusetts Uniform Probate Code, and it contains no fiduciary-access-to-digital-assets part. We have not been able to confirm an enactment elsewhere in the General Laws, and published summaries disagree with each other about whether Massachusetts has adopted the revised uniform act at all. So treat any confident statement you read on this, including ours, as unverified until counsel checks it. What follows from that in practice: in Massachusetts the provider’s own online tool and its terms-of-service agreement carry more weight than anywhere else, because there may be no state statute overriding them, and the federal privacy statutes still bar a provider from handing over the content of communications without consent. Check the accounts for a legacy contact setting first, and raise the question with the attorney before writing to any custodian.
G.L. c. 190B (searched; no digital-assets part found)·last read 2026-08-25
Financial Settlement
Pay valid debts and expenses
Massachusetts follows the Uniform Probate Code order but inserts MassHealth expressly. Under G.L. c. 190B § 3-805, where assets are insufficient. (1) Costs and expenses of administration. (2) Reasonable funeral expenses. (3) Debts and taxes with preference under federal law. (4) Reasonable and necessary medical and hospital expenses of the last illness, including compensation of those attending. (5) Debts and taxes with preference under other Massachusetts laws. (6) Debts Due to the Division of Medical Assistance. (7) All other claims. That sixth class is the Massachusetts addition and it sits above ordinary creditors — so a MassHealth estate-recovery claim is paid before credit cards, not alongside them. No preference within a class, and a due claim does not outrank one not yet due. Paying a lower-ranked debt before a higher-ranked one can leave you personally liable for the difference. So where the estate may not cover everything, stop before paying anything beyond the funeral and administration costs, and take advice.
G.L. c. 190B § 3-805·last read 2026-08-27
File required tax returns
Massachusetts has an estate tax and the rule changed — older guidance is wrong. The threshold rose from $1 million to $2 million effective 1 January 2023, and it is now a true exemption rather than the cliff it used to be: only the amount above $2 million is taxed, not the whole estate from the first dollar. The mechanism is a credit rather than a deduction, which matters if you are checking someone else’s arithmetic. G.L. c. 65C § 2A(g) exempts estates at or below $2,000,000 outright, and § 2A(f) gives estates above it a credit against the tax capped at $99,600. That is about the tax on the first $2 million, so the practical effect is that only the excess is taxed. If you are reading an article written before 2023, or one describing a Massachusetts cliff, it is out of date. One more thing explains why the Massachusetts arithmetic looks nothing like the federal: under § 2A(e) every reference to the Internal Revenue Code in this chapter means the Code as it stood on 31 December 2000. Massachusetts is frozen at that date, which is why it still works from the old federal state-death-tax-credit table rather than anything current. The threshold is still far below the federal one, so a Massachusetts estate can owe state tax while owing nothing federally.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 65C § 2A(e), (f), (g)·last read 2026-09-09
Distribution
Distribute assets to heirs
Massachusetts follows the Uniform Probate Code tiers but with its own dollar figures, which are lower than the model. G.L. c. 190B § 2-102 sets four shares. The spouse takes the entire estate if no descendant or parent survives, or if all the descendants are also the spouse’s and the spouse has no other children. They take the first $200,000 plus three quarters of the balance if there is no descendant but a parent survives. They take the first $100,000 plus half if all the descendants are shared but the spouse has children of their own. And they take the first $100,000 plus half if one or more of the deceased’s descendants are not the spouse’s. Note the surviving-parent case: a childless couple where the deceased’s mother or father is still alive does not give the spouse everything, which surprises people more than any other rule here. One thing worth stating plainly, because most of the Uniform Probate Code states around Massachusetts are the other way: there is no bar on an absent parent here. Section 2-114 is headed parent and child relationship, and its three subsections deal with natural parents, adoption and adoption by a relative — none of them precludes a parent who abandoned or failed to support a child from inheriting, as the equivalent sections do in Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Alaska and Montana. So a parent who was absent for years still inherits from that child in Massachusetts. Work the shares on the family as it legally stands. These shares apply only where there is no valid will — a will overrides all of it. And do not distribute anything until the creditor period has run and the debts are settled: a representative who pays the family early can be personally liable for what is still owing.
G.L. c. 190B §§ 2-102, 2-114·last read 2026-08-26
Close Estate
File a final accounting and close the estate
Massachusetts closes by sworn statement with a six-month wait. Under G.L. c. 190B § 3-1003 the personal representative may close by filing a verified statement no earlier than six months after the original appointment. It confirms that the time limited for presenting creditors’ claims has expired and that the estate has been fully administered — claims paid or settled, administration expenses and death taxes handled, assets distributed to those entitled. The route is closed where the court has prohibited it, and where the estate is in supervised administration. Remember the separate Massachusetts creditor rule when you judge the timing: a creditor’s action must be commenced within one year of the death, which is a longer outer window than the six months you must wait to file. Closing is what ends your exposure, so do not simply stop when the money runs out — an estate left open leaves the representative personally on the hook. And filing a closing statement is not the same as being discharged. In several states the appointment only terminates some months later, if nobody objects. Keep the file, the receipts and the proof of what you sent until then.
G.L. c. 190B § 3-1003·last read 2026-08-18
Work through this as a checklist
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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 Massachusetts probate attorney.