Alonna Warns, one of Hennepin County’s Registrars, released today the latest issue of her newsletter, “Probate In Common.” In this issue (Vol. 7:1), she covers the following topics:

• Probates for Non-resident decedents
• Issues related to the Notice to Commissioner
• Dismissed Orders
• Common mistakes on Informal Applications

If you practice probate in Hennepin County, this newsletter is a must-read. It is distributed by email. To get on the email list, contact Alonna. I don’t know if this is still true or not, but in the past she had a few rules regarding getting on the list: non-attorneys/law firms were not allowed; only one email recipient per firm; and the email must go to a probate paralegal, unless a firm doesn’t have a paralegal– then it can go to an attorney.

Many of the back issues are eventually available for download here.

Even if you don’t practice in Hennepin County, you’ll want to download the back issues since they contain helpful tips regarding probate procedures in general, even if the information is mostly specific only to Hennepin County.

Hennepin County announced today that beginning Monday (2/8), the procedure for obtaining estate letters will change for formal probates. Previously, the estate letters (Letters Testamentary or Letters of General Administration) issued from the “Estate Desk” (i.e. the staff behind the counter). Now, the Letters will issue from the Registrars.

According to the notice issued from Alonna Warns by email, in order to expedite the process for receiving the estate’s letters, you should ensure that at the formal hearing you provide the following (quoting):

Proposed Letters

Acceptance and Oath

Preapproval of any demand for bond

Note especially that you should bring in your own copy of the Letters you want signed. Previously, you never needed to bring in proposed Letters for a probate in Hennepin County, but you could if you wanted.

The second item isn’t new. It has always been my practice to submit the Acceptance and Oath along with the Petition or, at the latest, to submit it at the hearing. If your proposed PR is signing the Petition, it should be easy enough to go ahead and have the proposed PR sign the Acceptance and Oath too.

The item “preapproval of any demand for bond” is probably not worded correctly. Demands for bond don’t require pre-approval in the probate code that I’m aware of. I take this to mean that if there is a demand for bond on file, you should bring with you some sort of documentation that your personal representative has been pre-approved. Until this is confirmed, you should contact the Court to determine precisely what is required. [Add a comment below if you find out something.]

As I’ve discussed before, once you’ve had the hearing and turned in the documents above, the easiest way to check on the status of the issuance of the Letters is to check mncourts.gov/publicaccess. If the Order appointing your personal representative has been entered but the Letters have not, it could be that you haven’t submitted the appropriate documents (e.g. bond or Acceptance and Oath). Contact the referee’s clerk to determine the issue. If both the Order and Letters have been entered but you haven’t received the Letters, contact one of the Registrar’s to determine the issue.

The Hennepin County Probate Court is moving back to the 4th floor (C-4) today. Remember to update the address in your contacts list.

As a result of the recent changes in Hennepin County to the procedure to publish the probate notice, the Registrars will no longer allow you to mail the notices to the interested parties from their office (source: Registrar’s Office email). This had been a convenient option that enabled the attorney to quickly have the letters issued in a new probate since there was no delay in submitting an Affidavit of Mailing Notice.

The upshot of the new publication procedure is that it takes longer to open an informal probate in Hennepin than it used to take and it costs the estate more since the attorney arranges the publication.

As I reported earlier, Hennepin County Probate is no longer arranging for publication of the notice in informal probates.

I learned today that the Court will also no longer arrange for publication of the notice in formal probates. So far, there has been no indication from the Court as to how this will work procedurally. Presumably, it will work similar to procedures announced for the informals.

This change is effective November 1, 2008.

Update 7/15/09: The change was effective February 1, 2009.

Hennepin County Probate is no longer arranging for publication of the notice in informal probates.

According to a special edition of the Probate In Common Form newsletter, beginning November 1, 2008, attorney applicants “will be entirely responsible for the preparation of the informal probate notice and arranging for publication of the informal notice.”

The attorney (or pro se) will need to undertake the following steps:

• Draft the notice for publication. Be sure to include the name of the Registrar approving the application.
• Send the notice to the publisher of your choice (one designated as a legal newspaper).
• Have the publisher provide email proof of the publication to the Registrar.
• Provide the Registrar with a copy of the notice.

(cite: page 1 of newsletter).

Thank you to Alonna for putting together the newsletter and keeping attorneys up-to-date on the latest policy changes at the Hennepin County Probate Court.

Hennepin County’s Probate Court will adjust its calendar due to the impact the Court will feel because of the 2008 Republican National Convention.

There will be no probate, trust, or guardianship/conservatorship calendars from September 2nd through the 5th.

The probate Registrars will continue to take appointments, but there will be no pro se appointments.

The Registrars recommend that suburban attorneys wait until the week of the 8th to schedule downtown appointments due to traffic, parking, and security issues.