Alabama Probate of Estates Lawyer | The Harris Firm LLC

Someone Has to Settle the Estate. We Make Sure It’s Done Right.

The Harris Firm LLC opens, administers, and closes estates in probate courts across Alabama — with a will or without one — from offices in Birmingham, Chelsea, Huntsville, and Montgomery. Phone consultations on probate matters are free.

Losing someone is hard enough without a court process on top of it. Probate has deadlines, filings, and personal liability for the person running it — but with the right guidance it is a manageable, predictable path from loss to resolution. That guidance starts with a free phone call.

Every Kind of Alabama Estate

Does This Estate Even Need Probate?

Not every death requires a probate case. Assets with a built-in path to the next owner skip the process entirely: accounts with beneficiary designations, life insurance paid to a named beneficiary, property held jointly with an express right of survivorship, and anything already sitting in a funded living trust. If everything the deceased owned passes one of those ways, there may be nothing for the probate court to do.

Probate becomes necessary when the deceased owned assets solely in their own name with no designated path — a house titled to them alone, a bank account with no payable-on-death designation, a vehicle, an investment account. Banks, title companies, and buyers will not recognize anyone’s authority over those assets without court-issued letters. Probate is also the mechanism that formally cuts off creditor claims, which matters more than most families realize.

The free phone consultation usually answers this threshold question in a few minutes: what did they own, how was it titled, and is a court proceeding actually required — and if so, which kind.

Testate or Intestate: Why the Will Changes Everything

With a will — a testate estate. The court’s job is to validate the will and see that its instructions are carried out. The executor the will names is appointed, a properly drafted will typically waives the bond requirement, and the property goes where the deceased said it should go. Probating a will has its own rules and deadlines — including a hard time limit on offering a will for probate at all — which our testate estates page covers in detail.

Without a will — an intestate estate. Alabama’s succession statutes take over. The court appoints an administrator — usually the closest next of kin — who must post a bond that cannot be waived, and the property passes by a fixed statutory formula: spouse first, then children, then parents. The formula does not care what the family thinks the deceased would have wanted, and stepchildren and unmarried partners inherit nothing under it. Our intestate estates page walks through how the formula works and what administrators must do differently.

Intestate estates generally cost more, take longer, and generate more family friction than testate ones. It is the single best argument for having a will drafted before it is needed.

Letters Testamentary and Letters of Administration

Here is the moment most families discover they need probate: they walk into the bank with a death certificate and a power of attorney, and the bank says no. A power of attorney dies with the person who signed it. What the bank wants — what every financial institution, title company, and buyer wants — is letters from the probate court.

Letters Testamentary issue to the executor named in a valid will. Letters of Administration issue to the court-appointed administrator when there is no will. When there is a will but the named executor cannot or will not serve, the court appoints an administrator “with the will annexed” — who carries out the will’s terms all the same. And when something urgent cannot wait for the full appointment process — a business that needs running, an asset at risk — the court can appoint a special administrator with limited powers to bridge the gap.

Not everyone can serve. Alabama disqualifies minors and persons convicted of certain crimes, and while a nonresident named as executor in a will can generally serve, the rules tighten for nonresident administrators of intestate estates. Whoever serves takes on real fiduciary duties — and real personal liability for getting them wrong, which is why most personal representatives work with counsel from the start.

A practice tip that saves headaches: order several certified copies of the letters when they issue. Every institution wants to see an original certification, and requesting extras up front beats going back to the courthouse each time.

The Alabama Probate Process, Start to Finish

A typical formal administration runs eight to twelve months. Here is the shape of it.

Creditor Claims and the Six-Month Bar

Start with the reassurance most families need to hear: you are not personally responsible for your loved one’s debts. Credit card companies and collectors routinely imply otherwise to grieving relatives. The debts belong to the estate, they are paid from estate assets, and if the estate cannot cover them, they generally die with the estate — not with you.

Probate is the machine that makes this orderly. Creditors have six months from the grant of letters to file claims; claims not filed in time are barred. Valid claims are paid in a strict priority order — funeral expenses and administration costs first, unsecured creditors last, pro rata if the estate cannot pay everyone. Alabama law also protects statutory allowances for the surviving spouse and family that come ahead of unsecured creditors. Secured debts are the exception worth understanding: a mortgage stays with the house, so whoever takes the property takes the loan with it.

One more distinction that surprises people: proceeds from a wrongful death claim pass outside the estate in Alabama — they go to the heirs directly and are not subject to the deceased’s creditors, even though an estate must be opened to pursue the claim. Estates holding other injury claims follow different rules, which is exactly why those two situations get their own pages.

Small Estates and Summary Distribution

Not every estate needs the full eight-to-twelve-month process. For estates under Alabama’s statutory value threshold with straightforward assets, summary distribution can wrap things up in as little as thirty days — no personal representative appointment, no six-month creditor window, a fraction of the cost.

The catch is qualifying, and choosing correctly. Starting formal probate for an estate that qualified for summary distribution wastes months and money; starting summary distribution for an estate that does not qualify gets rejected and starts the clock over. We evaluate the estate against the threshold at the free consultation and tell you which path fits — the details live on our small estates page.

And if the goal is keeping the next estate out of probate altogether, that is an estate planning conversation — trusts, beneficiary designations, and survivorship titling are all built for exactly that.

Probating Estates in Alabama — Frequently Asked Questions

Ready to Open an Estate — or Find Out If You Need To?

One free phone call tells you whether probate is required, which process fits, and what it will cost — quoted flat, before anything is filed.