Hawaii Estate Accounting: A Personal Representative's Guide

Hawaii administers decedents' estates under HRS chapter 560, the Hawaii Uniform Probate Code, through the circuit court of the circuit where the estate is opened. Probate is a division of the circuit court, not a separate court, so a Hawaii probate caption names the circuit court and its probate division rather than a probate court of its own. Hawaii publishes no statewide printed inventory form and no printed account form. The statutes and the Hawaii Probate Rules set what each document must contain, and for the account the rules go further than most states in this guide do.

HRS 560:3-706 gives the inventory three separate duties, and they should not be flattened into one. First, the personal representative shall prepare an inventory within three months after appointment, listing the decedent's property with reasonable detail, its fair market value as of the date of death, and the type and amount of any encumbrance on it. Second, the personal representative shall file it with the court or mail it, one or the other, and that choice is still a duty, not an option to skip. Third, the personal representative shall send a copy to any interested person who requests one, and may also file the original with the court. That third clause is the one that reads as optional. The first two do not.

The account is a different story. HRS 560:3-1003 says what a closing statement must recite, but nothing about what an account presented to the court must contain. Hawaii Probate Rule 26 fills that gap. It is titled Format and Content, and it prescribes five parts, in order, for every accounting presented to the court. A later section of this guide lists them.

The inventory is due within three months after appointment, not three months after death (HRS 560:3-706).

HRS 560:3-719 entitles a personal representative to reasonable compensation for their services, with no rate and no schedule named in the statute. If a will provides for the personal representative's compensation, the personal representative may renounce that provision before qualifying and take reasonable compensation instead, and a personal representative may also renounce all or part of any compensation by a written renunciation filed with the court.

HRS 607-18 does carry a percentage schedule, and it is titled compensation of trustees. Whether it also reaches a decedent's estate personal representative, as opposed to a trustee or a guardian, is not something this guide can confirm. Confirm it with your own attorney before treating any percentage in Hawaii law as applying to a personal representative's fee. What is clear is that HRS 560:3-719, the section that governs a personal representative, sets no percentage at all.

Hawaii Probate Rule 26 adds its own requirement on top of HRS 560:3-719: an accounting to the court must explain the amount and the basis of any fiduciary fee taken or charged, not just the amount. ExecutorLedger prints the amount the estate's own records show as recorded compensation, or a ruled blank if none is recorded, plus a ruled blank for the basis, since the basis is the preparer's to state. Nothing on the page claims a court has allowed or will allow the amount.

A personal representative may close an estate by filing with the court, no earlier than six months after the date of original appointment of a general personal representative, a verified closing statement under HRS 560:3-1003. The statement recites that the time limited for presentation of creditors' claims has expired, that the personal representative has fully administered the estate by paying, settling or otherwise disposing of all claims that were presented, the expenses of administration, and estate, inheritance and other death taxes, except as the statement specifies, and that the assets have been distributed to the persons entitled. If a claim remains undischarged, the statement says either that the estate was distributed subject to possible liability with the distributees' agreement, or states in detail the other arrangements made to accommodate it. Both branches exist in the statute, and only one will apply to a given estate.

The closing statement itself is what gets filed with the court. The full written account is a different document: the personal representative sends a copy of the statement, and a full account in writing of the administration, to every distributee and to every creditor or claimant the personal representative knows of whose claim is neither paid nor barred. HRS 560:3-1003 has that account reach the distributees and claimants, not the court file.

Hawaii Probate Rule 26 governs a different situation: an accounting presented to the court itself, by petition, which is what happens when a personal representative petitions the court to settle an account, or an interested person asks the court to compel one. If you are furnishing the closing account to distributees under HRS 560:3-1003, Rule 26 does not reach that document. If you or someone else brings the account before the court, Rule 26's five parts are the specification for it.

Once the closing statement is filed, and if no proceeding involving the personal representative is pending in the court a year later, the appointment terminates on its own, with no further order needed (HRS 560:3-1003(b)).

• Wait out the creditor claims period, then close informally if you can: once 6 months have passed since your appointment, file a verified closing statement with the circuit court under HRS §560:3-1003 swearing that claims, expenses, and taxes are handled and the assets distributed.
• Before or with that filing, send a full written account of your administration to every distributee whose interests it affects, and send the closing statement itself to all distributees and to any creditor whose claim is neither paid nor barred.
• If you want a court order, or someone objects, petition the circuit court sitting in probate for complete settlement under HRS §560:3-1001 instead, serving the petition and final accounts on beneficiaries and unpaid creditors per Probate Rule 54.
• On the formal route, after the court approves the final accounting, distribute the assets, collect signed receipts from the distributees, and file those final receipts. Under Probate Rule 84 that filing discharges you without any further court order.
• On the informal route, your appointment ends automatically one year after the closing statement is filed if no proceedings are pending (HRS §560:3-1003(b)).

Probate is handled by Hawaii's circuit courts (HRS §603-21.6); there is no separate surrogate, register of wills, or orphans' court. Most administrations are unsupervised under the UPC pattern, and the informal sworn-statement route is the norm.

HRS 560:3-706 names no classes and no schedule for the inventory. It is one flat list, and real property sits on it with everything else, since the statute covers property owned by the decedent at the time of death with no carve-out. Any label ExecutorLedger prints beside an item is this product's own word for it, never a category the statute asks for.

Per item, the statute asks for three things kept separate: reasonable detail, the fair market value as of the date of death, and the type and amount of any encumbrance. ExecutorLedger records no lien data, so every row prints the value you recorded and a ruled blank for the encumbrance, with a note that Hawaii's statute keeps the value and the encumbrance in two columns rather than netting one against the other. This is a gross value plus a separate encumbrance figure, not a value already reduced by a lien.

Appraisal is optional under HRS 560:3-707. The personal representative may employ a qualified and disinterested appraiser for any asset whose value is open to reasonable doubt, and different appraisers may value different kinds of assets. When an appraiser is used, the statute makes the appraiser's name and address a required disclosure: it must appear on the inventory beside the item or items that appraiser valued. ExecutorLedger's inventory print carries a ruled line for that name and address wherever an appraiser was used, since the statute requires it only in that case.

Property found after the original inventory, or a value or description that turns out to be erroneous or misleading, goes on a supplementary inventory under HRS 560:3-708, never folded into the original total. HRS 560:3-708 carries two branches for where it goes: if the original inventory was filed with the court, the supplementary inventory is filed with the court too. If the original was not filed, the personal representative instead furnishes the supplementary inventory, or the information in it, to the interested persons who request it or who requested a copy of the original.

Hawaii Probate Rule 26 prescribes five parts for an accounting presented to the court, in this order, and that is unlike most states in this guide, where nothing governs the account's shape. First, a brief summary at the beginning of the account summarizing receipts and disbursements. Second, a list of the assets on hand at the end of the accounting period, at their inventory value, since Rule 26 asks for the inventory value for a probate accounting and a different figure, current fair market value, only for other kinds of accountings. Third, a summary explaining both the amount and the basis of any fiduciary fee taken or charged. Fourth, a detailed accounting of the period's transactions. Fifth, a copy of any auditor's report and management letter, if an audit was done; most estates have none, and the print says so rather than showing an empty section. Rule 26 also says an accounting to the court is presented by petition, so the account itself is an attachment to that petition, not a standalone filing.

Verification uses Hawaii Probate Rule 5's own words, not the familiar penalty-of-perjury phrase. Rule 5 gives a declaration reading: "I, (name of person), do declare under penalty of law that the foregoing is true and correct." Hawaii's rule says penalty of law, not penalty of perjury, and that wording should be printed as the rule gives it, without smoothing it into the familiar phrase. Rule 5 also gives petitions, including an accounting presented by petition under Rule 26, a statement at the end and before the signature. It has three parts, not one: that the representations are true as far as the person executing or filing it knows or is informed; that the document is not being presented for an improper purpose, such as to harass or to cause unnecessary delay or needless increase in the cost of litigation; and that penalties for perjury may follow deliberate falsification. Rule 5 says such a statement is accepted in place of an affidavit as to the facts stated in the document, and it adds that the signature of an applicant in informal proceedings shall be notarized. HRS 560:1-310 separately deems every document filed under the probate code to already include an oath to that same effect, except as a rule otherwise specifically provides, and Rule 5 is that kind of rule. So Hawaii's documents carry Rule 5's own wording rather than a notary jurat, and no Hawaii probate filing in this guide needs one.

Recording is free for as long as the estate takes: every receipt and disbursement with its date and description, distributions per beneficiary, and a balance that checks itself as you go. ExecutorLedger builds Hawaii-style documents from those records, an inventory in HRS 560:3-706's own single list and an account in Hawaii Probate Rule 26's five prescribed parts, ready to transcribe or attach when you file, mail or present one. Neither is a court form, and your attorney should review them before anything is signed or filed. Every document previews free with your real numbers, and $149 (one-time payment) per estate lifts the watermark. Usually less than one attorney hour, and typically reimbursable by the estate.