Idaho Estate Accounting: A Personal Representative's Guide

Idaho administers decedents' estates under Title 15 of the Idaho Code, and probate is assigned to the magistrate division of the district court (Idaho Code 1-2208(2)). A caption still names the district court, the judicial district and the county rather than the word division: that is how a currently live Idaho Court Assistance Office form for a related probate matter captions itself, and this guide follows the same convention. The Court Assistance Office publishes no form for a decedent's estate inventory, account or closing statement. Its forms catalogue covers guardianships and conservatorships, not decedents' estates, and a personal representative who finds one of those forms online should not use it. A form number sometimes described online as Form CAO Pb 01 cannot be found on the Court Assistance Office's own site and should not be relied on. The IUPC form series, including a document sometimes labeled IUPC041, traces to an old Idaho State Bar probate-forms volume reproduced today only by commercial vendors. It is not a court form, and no form number prints on any document this guide describes.

The first document is the inventory, required by Idaho Code 15-3-706. Within three months after appointment, not three months after death, a personal representative who is not a special administrator, and who has not taken over from an earlier representative who already did it, prepares one list of the property the decedent owned at death, with reasonable detail, each item's fair market value as of the date of death, and the type and amount of any encumbrance on it. Idaho sits on the permissive side of a split among Uniform Probate Code states. Sending a copy to an interested person who requests one is required. Filing the original with the court is the personal representative's own option. A reader who has read about a neighboring state's mandatory filing rule should not assume Idaho works the same way. It does not.

The second document is the verified statement to close the estate under Idaho Code 15-3-1003, filed once the estate is ready to close. It recites that the creditors' claim deadline has expired; that the estate has been fully administered, meaning every claim that was presented has been handled along with the expenses of administration and estate, and inheritance and other death taxes, with the assets distributed to the people entitled, and, for any claim that remains undischarged, either that the estate was distributed subject to possible liability with the distributees' consent or what other arrangements were made; and that copies of the statement went to the distributees and to any known creditor or claimant whose claim remains unpaid or unbarred, along with a full written account of the administration furnished to the distributees. Idaho's statute sets no content or format for that account. It only requires that one exists and reaches the distributees, and it is furnished to them rather than filed with the court; only the verified statement itself is filed.

The inventory is due within three months after the personal representative's appointment, not three months after death (Idaho Code 15-3-706).

Idaho sets no percentage schedule. Idaho Code 15-3-719 entitles a personal representative to reasonable compensation for their services, with no tiers and no rate named anywhere in the statute. Idaho Code 15-3-721 covers compensation paid to anyone the personal representative employed, including counsel, and their own compensation as well. The court may review it after notice to all interested persons, on the petition of an interested person, or on an appropriate motion where the administration is supervised.

So an Idaho fee is a figure you support with the record of your work, not one you look up in a table. ExecutorLedger never computes an Idaho commission from a percentage, since no Idaho statute sets one. Where the estate's own records show compensation already paid, that figure is what the closing account reports, and nothing on the page claims a court has allowed or will allow it.

The verified statement to close the estate under Idaho Code 15-3-1003 is filed no earlier than six months after the original appointment of a general personal representative. It recites three things, in the statute's own order: that the creditors' claim presentation deadline has expired; that the estate has been fully administered, handling every claim that was presented, the expenses of administration and estate, and inheritance and other death taxes, and distributing the assets to the people entitled, with a place to describe anything excepted, and stating for any claim that remains undischarged either that the estate was distributed subject to possible liability with the distributees' consent or what other arrangements were made; and that copies of the statement went to every distributee and to known creditors or claimants whose claims remain unpaid or unbarred, along with a full account in writing of the administration furnished to the distributees whose interests are affected by it.

This is the ordinary, unsupervised route. A supervised estate closes the formal way instead, under Idaho Code 15-3-1001 and 15-3-1002, and cannot use the verified statement under 15-3-1003 at all. A small estate closed through the summary procedure under Idaho Code 15-3-1203 files a different closing statement of its own, under Idaho Code 15-3-1204. Neither of those routes is what this guide or ExecutorLedger's Idaho documents cover.

Idaho Code 15-3-1003(b) starts a one-year clock once the statement is filed. If no proceeding involving the personal representative is pending in the court when that year is up, the appointment terminates on its own, with no order needed.

• Wait out the creditor claim period and at least 6 months from your appointment. Idaho Code §15-3-1003 does not allow an informal closing any sooner.
• Pay the allowed claims, expenses, and taxes, then distribute what remains to the people entitled to it.
• Send every distributee and every known claimant a full written accounting of your administration. The closing statement must swear you did this.
• File a sworn (verified) closing statement under Idaho Code §15-3-1003 with the magistrate division of the district court. This is the informal route most Idaho estates use; your appointment then ends automatically one year after filing if no proceedings are pending.
• If there are disputes or you want a binding court order approving the accounting and distribution, petition instead for formal settlement under Idaho Code §15-3-1001.

Idaho probate, including closing, is handled by magistrates in the magistrate division of the county district court (Idaho Code §1-2208). There is no separate probate, surrogate's, or orphans' court.

Idaho Code 15-3-706 names no classes for the inventory, unlike states that sort property into lettered or numbered schedules. Real property sits on the same single list as everything else, at its full value, with its own subtotal shown as a subtotal of that same list rather than a second schedule that could be counted twice. Any label ExecutorLedger prints beside an item is this product's own description, never a category the statute asks for. The encumbrance the statute asks for, the type and amount of any lien or charge against an item, is its own datum, printed as a ruled line for you to fill in. It is never netted against the value, because Idaho Code 15-3-706 asks for the item's fair market value and its encumbrance separately, a gross figure plus a separate line, not a combined net-of-lien figure the way some other states ask for it.

Idaho is a community property state, but Idaho Code 15-3-706's own text carries no community-or-separate column, unlike some other community property states. ExecutorLedger prints none, and does not say the statute requires one.

Employing an appraiser is optional under Idaho Code 15-3-707, for any asset whose value may be subject to reasonable doubt, and different appraisers may be used for different kinds of asset. Once an appraiser is used, the statute makes the disclosure mandatory: the appraiser's name and address must be shown on the inventory beside the item or items that appraiser valued. A supplementary inventory under Idaho Code 15-3-708 is its own instrument with its own total, for property found later or a value or description that needs correcting, with no deadline of its own. What happens to it depends on whether the original inventory was filed with the court. If it was, the supplementary inventory is filed with the court too. If it was not, copies go to the state tax commission and to every interested person who was sent a copy of the original. Idaho no longer imposes an inheritance or estate tax, so the tax commission copy may be a dead letter, and a personal representative should confirm with the state tax commission whether it still wants a copy.

Idaho Code 15-1-310 deems every document filed with the court under the probate code, including this inventory, to already include an oath, affirmation or statement that its representations are true so far as the person filing it knows or is informed, with penalties for perjury possibly following deliberate falsification. Neither document carries a notary jurat, and Idaho prescribes no sentence of the kind some other states require a signer to write out. Because the verified statement to close the estate calls itself verified, practice still varies by county, so confirm with your own county whether it wants a notarized signature anyway; the statute does not forbid one.

Idaho's statute says nothing about what the closing account has to contain, not a schedule, not a column, not a heading. The schedules ExecutorLedger prints are this product's own presentation of the estate's records, in the same charge-and-discharge shape it uses for Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Nebraska and California, whose statutes are equally silent. They are not a format Idaho requires, and the printed page says so.

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 Idaho-style documents from those records, an inventory in the statute's own single, undifferentiated list and a verified statement to close with its full account, ready to transcribe or attach when you send a copy to an interested person or furnish an account to a distributee. 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.