Heir Rights (KY)
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As an heir, you likely have questions about the inheritance process in KY, and your rights.
Overall, if you are entitled to receive an inheritance, you have the right to expect to receive that inheritance ... eventually. While some states attempt to put deadlines on estate settlements, an average estate takes 16 months to settle, and some take years (see Inheritance Timing).
Rights Under KY Probate
Most estates are settled by an executor appointed by the court (often a family member), under a court-supervised process known as probate. The executor has significant discretionary power, but he or she has a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the estate, to follow the law, and to distribute estate proceeds to the rightful heirs.
However, KY estates must satisfy obligations according to priority (for example, debts take precedence over distributions), so in some cases your inheritance will be less than expected, or even be completely consumed by other estate priorities (which must generally affect all potential heirs proportionately). See Estate Expenses, Fees, and Taxes for more information, and note that for your protection, estate executors must document all estate transactions and make these records available to the courts ... and in some states, must proactively deliver these records in a Final Accounting to the heirs as well.
Your rights as an heir include:
- Notice: Many states have laws that require an estate executor to notify you of the death and the estate proceeding if you are mentioned in the will, if there is no will and you are entitled to inherit by intestate succession, or even if there is a will that doesn't mention you, but you would have been entitled to inherit by intestate succession (i.e., you are an "heir-at-law").
- Estate Information: Many states require the executor to provide you a copy of the estate inventory, as well as a Final Accounting (what happened to the inventory, what estate expenses were incurred, etc.). If the estate is undergoing probate, and the state does not require that the executor directly supply you the information, you can simply make a public records request for the reports filed with the court.
- KY Family Entitlements: If you are a surviving spouse or dependent child, you likely have additional rights that go beyond anything mentioned in the will or mandated by the laws of intestate succession. Surviving family members often have the right to remain living in the family home for a certain period of time, to automatically receive certain personal possessions, to receive a living allowance from the estate while it is being settled, and to receive certain minimum amounts (see KY Family Entitlement details for your state).
- Reasonable Timeframe: Unless the asset is one that automatically transfers on death (such as an IRA with a named beneficiary), you can expect the process to take 12-18 months on average, and sometimes considerably longer (see Inheritance Timing). An executor has a duty to settle an estate in a reasonable timeframe, but most states are very lenient about such timeframes, and there are legitimate reasons that some estates take years to settle. On the other hand, some executor simply cannot handle the task, or unreasonably delay, and those can be grounds to ask the court to remove the executor and appoint someone else.
- Court Objections: If the estate undergoes probate (and most do), you have the right to object to the probate court about anything you think is being done incorrectly or improperly. You can object to the appointment of a particular executor, you can object to the validity of a will, you can object to particular distributions (not just your own), you can object to sales of assets, you can object to how long things are taking ... in fact, you can object to almost anything. You just need to make sure you have valid grounds for doing so, and it's important to realize that settling an estate is a difficult task that takes time. See Court to find your particular court.
- Lawsuits: If the probate judge does not respond to your objection as desired, or if there is no probate proceeding, then you can file a civil lawsuit against the estate. Such lawsuits can be expensive, and should be considered only as a last resort.
Additional considerations:
- Expectations: Please keep in mind that although a will may be specific about an intended inheritance, other factors can sometimes intervene to modify or even entirely invalidate the inheritance. See KY Rules of Inheritance for details.
- Inheritance Taxes: Some states have inheritance taxes for which the executor has the responsibility of paying, out of your share, before giving you your remaining inheritance. If your executor is using EstateExec, it will tell him or her if such taxes apply.
- Executor Discretion: Unless the inheritance is a specific bequest, the executor may have some discretion in deciding how to give you your share of an estate. The executor may decide to liquidate assets and give you all cash (and cash equivalents), or the executor may mix and match assets to equal your share. You have to the right to ask for your share to be given in a certain form, but the executor does not have to respect your wishes. For this reason (and others), it is advisable to try to retain a good relationship with the executor (see Working with Executors).
- Inheritance Receipts: When you receive an inheritance, the executor will likely ask you to sign a receipt, which can be required. However, the executor will often ask you, as a condition of receiving the proceeds, to waive any rights you may to decide to sue the estate or the executor in the future. Such waivers are best practice for an executor, but heirs are not required to waive their rights, so the decision is up to you. It may be best to sign anyway, to preserve the relationship and to receive your inheritance in a timely manner, but your ultimate recourse is to either convince the executor to drop the waiver, or object to the court.
KY Small Estate Rights
Most states have laws enabling small estates to be settled without full probate, sometimes without any court involvement at all. In such cases, there may be no formally appointed executor, and the heir can directly collect any inheritance to which he or she is entitled, by providing appropriate documentation to the current asset holders.
In Kentucky, estates can avoid full probate by settling the estate without administration, dispensing with administration by agreement, or via informal settlement. Regardless of estate size, probate is not required if an estate contains only assets exempt from probate.
Small Estate without Administration
If a Kentucky estate is worth <$30,000 and there is a surviving spouse, you can use the small estate process to settle an estate with minimal court involvement.
Requirements
To use the small estate process, there must be a surviving spouse and the gross probatable estate must be worth <$30,000 (with some exceptions when preferred debts exist).
In determining gross probatable value of an estate, you should value assets as of the date of death. Do not include any assets that would not normally go through probate, such as assets owned in joint tenancy, assets payable on death with named beneficiaries (e.g., 401Ks, life insurance policies), and other standard probate exclusions.
If there are preferred debts (such as funeral expenses) that the surviving spouse has already paid from his or her own estate, then the $30,000 limit can be increased by the amounts of those paid debts. See Distribution Considerations below for a list of preferred debt types.
Process
To use the small estate process:
- Submit to the probate court a Petition to Dispense with Administration (Form AOC 830)
- You will receive a court order, which you can use to obtain custody of the estate assets
- There is no legal requirement to do anything else, since the assets transferred are exempt from any creditor claims
See KRS § 395.455 and KRS § 395.030.
Dispensing with Administration by Agreement
You can also skip probate if the estate is simple, there is no will, and everyone agrees in writing so bypass administration.
Requirements
To dispense with administration by agreement, the following conditions must be true:
- There is no will
- There are no (remaining) known estate debts
- All heirs agree in writing that there should be no administration
While the statute says that the estate may have no debts, there may be circumstances in which it is worth it for the heirs to separately satisfy those debts in order to qualify for this process.
There is no official limit to the size of an estate that may be handled this way.
Process
To use this approach process:
- Submit to the probate court a Petition to Dispense with Administration by Agreement (see below)
- Publish in a newspaper (in local circulation) a notice to creditors to present any claims to the clerk designated by the court.
- Obtain a bond for the value of the personal estate (this bond may be used by the court to pay any currently unknown debts that are legitimately claimed within 6 months of the requested court order
- After the 6-week notice period has expired, you will receive a court order transferring ownership estate assets
- Use the order to collect estate assets and distribute them to the rightful heirs
- After 6 months, you can collect the funds from the bond which were not used to pay previously unknown debts
Petition
This process is not commonly used, and thus there is no official form for the petition.
In your petition, you must include:
- The name, residence, and date of death of the decedent
- A statement that there is no known will
- An inventory of estate assets
- A statement that there are no estate debts
- A list of all heirs entitled to inherit, including their names, addresses, and percent of estate due
- If there are claims due to the estate, name someone who will be granted the power to collect such claims
- Include plans for paying any state inheritance and federal estate taxes, if appropriate
Attach a copy of the death certificate, and have each heir sign the petition. Every signature must be notarized at the time of signing.
See KRS § 395.470.
Informal Settlement
If for some reason you must, or you just want to, go through official probate, you may be able to request an informal settlement in order to simplify the process.
Requirements
You can use an informal settlement if:
- The personal representative is the sole beneficiary of the estate,
- Or all inheritors agree to an informal settlement
The estate must be solvent (able to pay all its debts).
Process
To proceed with informal settlement:
- Submit to the court a Petition for Probate (Form AOC-805)
- Obtain any required Fiduciary Bond (Form AOC-825)
- The court will appoint you personal representative and give a Certificate of Qualification
- Use your Certificate of Qualification to collect estate assets
- Wait at least 6 months after you were appointed personal representative
- Settle the estate in the normal way (pay all obligations, distribute net assets)
- Submit to the court a Motion for Informal Settlement (Form AOC-850), along with a Waiver of Formal Settlement (Form AOC-851)) signed by all the heirs (if a spouse is not the sole heir)
See KRS § 395.605.
Estate Settlement Considerations
Before paying any debts or making any distributions, be sure to account for any KY Family Entitlements, which typically have priority over everything except expenses of the last illness, funeral charges, and any estate administrations expenses.
Even if the estate does not go through probate, you are still entitled to Executor Compensation in KY, and this compensation also has priority over most estate debts.
Estate debts have priority over most distributions in turn, so you should arrange to have all debts resolved before distributing assets. Unpaid estate creditors have the right to sue heirs for the value of any distributions received using the approaches described on this page, although statute of limitations in KY may bar creditors from pursuing such payment.
If estate solvency is uncertain, an executor should consider going through official probate for the increased creditor protection it offers. Alternately, such uncertainty can sometimes persuade creditors to forgive a portion of debts, since they will want to avoid legal expenses as well, and may prefer to get something rather than nothing.
If there are not enough estate funds to pay all creditors, unsecured claims must be satisfied in the following priority order:
- Estate administration expenses
- Funeral expenses
- Debts and taxes with preference under federal or state law
- All other debts
Items 1-3 are considered "preferred" debts: see KRS § 396.095.
See also Making Distributions.
No Small Estate Affidavit
Since people commonly ask, note that Kentucky has no notion of a small estate affidavit that involves no court interaction: you must use one of the above methods to settle the estate, or formal probate.
Court
In Kentucky, the local District Court handles wills and estate probate. To find your court, select Category "District Judges", and then the county of the decedent's legal residence.
Estate Debts
Finally, note that as an heir, you are NOT responsible for paying the debts of the KY estate out of your own funds. You do NOT inherit responsibility for paying the debts of parents, for example. If the estate is insolvent (i.e., cannot pay all its bills), then creditors simply end up with less than owed, or even nothing ... as do you.
If an estate ends up being insolvent, and you somehow received a distribution anyway (perhaps through a small estate process), some states allow creditors to sue you to reclaim any amounts they are still owed. So you can't inherit a debt outright, but if you receive a distribution that the estate needed to pay its bills, you may be forced to pay out some or all of that distribution.
Additional Information
For more information about inheritances in general, see EstateExec Heir Guide.
In case you're interested, heir rights in other states can be found here:
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