Guides
The checker answers your state's question. These guides answer the ones around it — what doesn't count, what to do when the bank says no, the three doors, the house question, the debts, and how to leave your own estate small on purpose.
Before any limit is applied, the law removes a whole class of property from the count — and most families never hear about it until after they have paid a lawyer.
It is the most common failure of an otherwise free procedure: a valid, notarized affidavit refused at a branch counter. Here is why it happens and what actually works.
Every estate in America goes through one of three doors. The difference between them is months of time and thousands of dollars — and which door fits is mostly arithmetic.
A house in the deceased's name alone is the single most common reason a 'small' estate ends up in court. The states answer it three different ways.
The signer of a small-estate affidavit takes on a personal duty: pay the estate's debts in the order the law sets, or owe them yourself. Here is that order, in plain words.
Everything this site teaches a grieving family to untangle can be pre-untangled by the living, in an afternoon, for free. This page is for the person who never wants their kids to need this checker.