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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.
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