Articles Tagged with small estates

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A patron came in who had lost her father. She knew she needed to do something about his estate but had no idea where to start. A friend had told her she might not need to file anything with the court. She wanted to know what to do and if the court needed to be involved.

First, we pointed her to resources, such as law dictionaries, to explain a couple basic terms.

  • Probate is the court process of appointing, and overseeing, someone to administer an estate, identify heirs, inventory assets, pay debts, and distribute the remaining property. This process is handled by the Probate Department of the court.
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We get quite a few patrons looking for small estate affidavit forms to use in the Washington County Circuit Court.  Patrons often remark that other circuit courts have small estate forms available online, thinking our court will also offer the forms.  However, our probate department does not offer small estate forms, but does have great instructions on their website for filing a small estate. Plus, the court will honor any statutorily compliant form.  The law changes frequently, and it takes time and money to keep legal forms up to date.  So individual circuit courts decide which supplemental forms they will offer, outside of the standard Oregon Judicial Department forms.  If you are looking for small estate resources,  here are a few places you can find small-estate affidavit forms and information:

1) Check with the applicable circuit court’s website for forms and/or information on filing a small-estate affidavit. Our circuit court does provides information on filing an Affidavit of Claiming Successor, including the related statutes.  The following circuit courts offer the small estate forms online: MarionDeschutes, Jackson, Linn, and Clackamas.

2) A common referral for frequently-used forms is the Stevens-Ness Law Publishing Company. They sell Oregon-specific small-estate affidavit forms for both testate and intestate estates (in paper and electronic formats).

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