Colorado Estate Accounting: An Executor's Guide

Colorado has two Judicial Branch forms. The inventory, JDF 941SC, sorts what the decedent owned into eight schedules: seven asset categories, real estate, stocks and investment accounts, mortgages and cash and bank accounts, life insurance payable to the estate, retirement funds payable to the estate, motor and recreation vehicles, and other assets, each feeding one Total Gross Value, plus an eighth schedule, liens and encumbrances, subtracted to reach Total Net Value. Each schedule carries its own None box. The personal representative, and any co-personal representative, sign under penalty of perjury.

The accounting, JDF 942SC, is one form covering either an interim or a final accounting, told apart by a checkbox rather than two separate forms. It rolls forward from a beginning balance, adds funds received or collected during the period, detailed on page 2, subtracts payments made during the period, detailed on page 3, and reaches an ending balance. A one-page SUMMARY table then reuses the same eight schedule categories at their period-end values. The form's own header states it plainly: this accounting must be typed or prepared by automated data processing.

Filing either one with the court is elective by default. C.R.S. 15-12-706(2) lets a personal representative send a copy of the inventory to interested persons who request it, or file the original with the court, and there is no blanket duty to file an accounting with the court at all outside a few narrower routes. Neither document claims to be the court's own form here; each is shaped to transcribe onto it.

The JDF 941SC inventory is generally due 3 months after your appointment, valued at fair market value as of the decedent's date of death, with the type and amount of any liens and encumbrances disclosed (C.R.S. 15-12-706(1)). When heirs or devisees are unknown or unqualified, a copy of the inventory also goes to the attorney general, within that same 3 months (C.R.S. 15-12-706(3)).

C.R.S. 15-10-602 and 15-10-603 set the rule: a fiduciary and the fiduciary's lawyer are entitled to reasonable compensation for services rendered on behalf of the estate. Colorado has no statutory percentage schedule. Section 15-10-603(2) says no method of charging a fee is presumed unreasonable on its own, and 15-10-603(3) lists thirteen reasonableness factors, among them the time and labor required, compensation customarily charged in the community, and the nature and size of the estate.

Compensation is normally paid without a court order, except that once you have notice of removal proceedings, payment requires one, and the court keeps authority in every case to review reasonableness and order a refund of anything excessive (C.R.S. 15-10-602(5)). The older personal-representative fee statute, C.R.S. 15-12-719, is repealed; it no longer governs anything.

Colorado has four routes to close an estate, and the JDF 942SC accounting is treated differently on each. A formal complete settlement (C.R.S. 15-12-1001) runs through an eight-form packet; it requires the JDF 941SC inventory already on file with the court, and the accounting joins the packet only when the required waivers of notice were not submitted with the petition. These hearings proceed without a personal appearance, at 8:00 a.m. on weekdays, unless contested (C.R.P.P. Rule 24).

A general closing statement (C.R.S. 15-12-1003) has no dollar ceiling and may be filed once 6 months have passed since your original appointment, or 1 year after the date of death, whichever comes first. The accounting is mailed or hand-delivered to interested persons under this route, but it does not need to be filed with the court.

A small estate can close by sworn statement (C.R.S. 15-12-1204) once the sum of the estate's fiduciary personal property, exempt property, family allowance, administration costs, funeral expenses, and last-illness medical expenses stays under a formula the statute sets, not a flat dollar figure. A separate, adjacent mechanism, the small-estate affidavit (C.R.S. 15-12-1201), lets an heir collect certain property without either JDF form at all, once the estate's value falls under twice the exempt-property figure, adjusted each year.

Supervised administration (C.R.S. 15-12-501, 504, and 505) is the one route that makes both documents mandatory filings on their own: the inventory, an annual interim accounting, and a final accounting, unless the court orders otherwise (C.R.P.P. Rule 54(b)).

• Wait until at least 6 months after your appointment (or 1 year after death, if that comes first) and until the creditor claim periods have run before starting to close (C.R.S. §15-12-1003).
• Prepare a final accounting showing receipts, disbursements, and remaining assets (the court's JDF 942 layout satisfies Rule 31) and send it to all distributees.
• File the sworn Statement of Personal Representative Closing Administration (JDF 965) under §15-12-1003 with the court, after mailing a copy to every distributee and known unpaid claimant. No hearing is required for the informal route.
• Keep your records for a year: your appointment terminates automatically one year after the closing statement is filed if no proceedings are pending, and interested persons can still object during that year.
• If disputes are likely or you want a court-ordered discharge, petition instead for formal final settlement (§15-12-1001, JDF 960) and collect a signed Receipt and Release (JDF 731) from each beneficiary.

Most uncontested Colorado estates close informally by sworn closing statement, the UPC §3-1003 pattern. Probate sits in the district court of the county where the decedent lived, except the City and County of Denver, which has a dedicated Denver Probate Court with exclusive probate jurisdiction (C.R.S. §13-9-103).

The JDF 942SC accounting is a cash roll-forward, not a full transaction ledger. Four lines carry it: a beginning balance, funds received or collected during the period, payments made during the period, and an ending balance, which is the beginning balance plus what came in minus what went out. On a first accounting, the beginning balance is the date-of-death value of the bank and cash assets the estate owned at death.

A sale during the period counts as funds received at its full sale price, in date order, the same as any other money coming in. There is no separate schedule for gains or losses, no dedicated executor-fee line, and no principal-and-income split anywhere on the form.

Property handed to a beneficiary in kind, rather than sold for cash, is not a payment of funds, and it never appears on page 3. It leaves the SUMMARY table on page 1, the same table that lists the eight schedule categories from the inventory at their period-end values.

The app tracks no liens today. Schedule 8's five pre-printed rows, its Total Encumbrances line, and the Total Net Value that depends on it print as labeled blanks for you to fill in by hand, the same convention Arkansas and Massachusetts already use for what their own registries do not track.

Recording is free for as long as the estate takes: every receipt and payment with its date and description, a cash balance that checks itself as you go, and the assets you are tracking by category. ExecutorLedger builds Colorado-style documents from those records, an inventory shaped like JDF 941SC and an accounting shaped like JDF 942SC, ready to transcribe if you end up needing to file or hand a copy to interested persons. Neither is the court's own form, and your attorney should review them before anything is signed or sent. Every document previews free with your real numbers, and $149 once per estate lifts the watermark.