Indiana Estate Accounting: A Personal Representative's Guide

Indiana administers estates under IC 29-1, through the circuit or superior court in each county. There is no statewide probate form category on the Indiana Judicial Branch's own forms page, and the counties say so themselves: Allen County's printed guide describes the final report and closing statement by saying "the formats of these reports will differ from case to case; therefore, no forms are available." So the statutes are the whole specification, and there is no form number to look for or to print.

The first document is the verified inventory, required by IC 29-1-12-1 in a supervised estate and IC 29-1-7.5-3.2 in an unsupervised one. It lists the fair market value of every item of the estate as of the date of death, sorted into seven statutory classes, along with a separate statement of any known liens or other charges against an item. One real Indiana document survives for this: Allen County's own Inventory (rev. 08/2015), whose schedule order and headings track the statute, and this guide and the documents ExecutorLedger builds follow its shape.

The second document is the account, fixed by IC 29-1-16-4 into three schedules: property chargeable to the personal representative, payments and distributions, and the property remaining on hand. Which court paper carries it depends on the estate's route. A supervised estate files the three-schedule final account itself. An unsupervised estate files only a closing statement, with the three-schedule account going to the beneficiaries instead. Marion, Lake, and Hamilton counties all require the three-schedule format by local rule and reject anything else: Marion County MSCPR 411.1 says plainly, "Informal, handwritten or transactional accountings will not be accepted."

The verified inventory is due within two months after appointment, unless the court grants a longer time (IC 29-1-12-1, IC 29-1-7.5-3.2).

If the will fixes the personal representative's compensation, that provision is the full compensation unless it was renounced in writing before qualifying. Otherwise IC 29-1-10-13 allows the personal representative reasonable compensation for services. There is no percentage schedule either way: the section names no rate, bracket or table, and neither Marion, Lake nor Hamilton County's local rules add one.

So an Indiana fee is an amount you have to justify rather than a number you can look up. Keep the hours, the tasks, and the dates as you go, because the record of the work is what supports the figure. ExecutorLedger never computes an Indiana commission from a percentage, since no Indiana statute sets one.

A supervised estate closes with the three-schedule final account under IC 29-1-16-3 and IC 29-1-16-4, together with a petition to settle and allow the account and a petition for distribution. IC 29-1-16-5 lets the personal representative fold both petitions into the account itself, and it must name the persons to whom distribution is to be made and the share each is entitled to. The final account also carries the verified statement IC 29-1-17-2(b) requires: that notice to creditors was published, that first publication was more than three months before the date of the account, and that notice was given as IC 29-1-7-7(c), (d), and (f) require. Distribution follows the court's approval, and receipts come in afterward in a supplemental report under IC 29-1-17-13, so the final account itself does not have to balance to zero.

An unsupervised estate closes with a closing statement under IC 29-1-7.5-4 instead, filed no earlier than three months after the first published notice to creditors. The closing statement carries no schedules of its own. The three-schedule account is still prepared, but IC 29-1-7.5-4(a)(6)(B) sends it to the distributees, not the court, as a full written account of the administration, unless waived in writing. Filing the statement does not close the estate: if no proceeding involving the personal representative is then pending, the estate closes by operation of law three months after the statement is filed, and the appointment ends with it (IC 29-1-7.5-4(b)). Marion County MSCPR 406.7 says the court issues no order approving the closing statement and no order discharging the personal representative.

Indiana's inheritance tax is repealed for deaths after December 31, 2012 (IC 6-4.1-12-0.5), even though IC 29-1-7.5-4(a)(3), IC 29-1-17-2(d), and Marion County MSCPR 420.5 still mention it. Nothing ExecutorLedger prints for Indiana carries an inheritance tax line.

• Run the estate unsupervised when the will authorizes it or the distributees consent. That is how most Indiana estates close, without court approval of an account (Ind. Code §29-1-7.5).
• After the claim period runs, file a verified closing statement under Ind. Code §29-1-7.5-4 stating that notice was published, creditors were served, claims and taxes are handled, and everything has been distributed.
• Send a copy of the closing statement to every distributee and to any creditor with an unpaid, unbarred claim, along with a full written account of your administration, unless the distributee waives the account in writing.
• Wait out the 3 months after you file. If no proceedings involving you are pending by then, the estate closes and your appointment ends by operation of law, with no discharge order needed.
• In a supervised estate, instead file a final account in the statutory three-schedule format with a petition for final settlement and distribution, and get approval and discharge from the circuit or superior court sitting in probate (Ind. Code §29-1-16).

Indiana has no surrogate, register of wills, or orphans' court. Probate is handled by the circuit or superior court of the county (St. Joseph County has a standalone probate court).

The inventory's seven classes come from IC 29-1-12-1(b), in the statute's own order, with Allen County's own parenthetical instructions: (1) real property, with a plat or survey description, and the homestead designated as such; (2) furniture and household goods; (3) emblements and annual crops raised by labor; (4) corporate stock, with par value, class, and preferred dividend rate; (5) mortgages, bonds, notes, and other written evidence of debt; (6) bank accounts, money, and insurance payable to the estate; and (7) all other personal property, including a partnership interest. ExecutorLedger's own asset categories have nothing that lands in classes (3) or (5), so those headings print with a None line, the way a reader can see what belongs there.

The statute asks for the fair market value of each item as of the date of death, plus a separate statement of any known liens or other charges. That statement stands apart from the value; it is never subtracted from it, which is the opposite of how some other states' inventories work. Real property is inventoried too, because IC 29-1-13-1 puts all of the decedent's real and personal property into the personal representative's possession. The recapitulation totals classes (2) through (7) as the personal property total, holds class (1) real property out on its own line, and adds the two into a grand total, the way Allen County's own inventory does.

The account's schedule one is the whole inventory, real property included, plus income received, property found later, and adjustments, an approach Lake County's own instructions describe as covering "all assets listed on the inventory, any income and additional assets obtained during administration, and any adjustments to the inventory." Because schedule one already carries the whole inventory, charging it once and then also charging full sale proceeds as new income counts the same asset twice; only the gain or loss on a sale belongs in the account beyond the opening figure.

Schedule two lists payments, charges, losses, and distributions, one line per item, in the field order Marion County MSCPR 411.1 fixes: date, check number or other identifying number for the payment, the payee's name, the amount, and a description where the purpose is not obvious. ExecutorLedger records no check number, so that column prints as a ruled blank on every row. Gains, losses, and changes in value get their own single section, as Marion County MSCPR 411.8(c) requires, with a zero printed for a sale at no change rather than the line being left off, since a missing line reads as an unreported sale.

Schedule three recaps the property remaining on hand, grouped by inventory class, real property included, and Lake County's own instructions call it plainly "a recapitulation indicating the remaining estate property after subtracting expenditures." An empty schedule three is normal; the statute's own words allow it, "if any." An item distributed in kind carries at ExecutorLedger's own recorded figure, labeled as the carried value, because IC 29-1-17-10(a) fixes the distribution value at a time within ten days of the petition for distribution, a valuation the preparer still has to confirm.

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 Indiana-style documents from those records, a verified inventory shaped like Allen County's own form and a three-schedule account shaped like IC 29-1-16-4, ready to transcribe whether your estate furnishes, files, or hands the account to beneficiaries. 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.