Minnesota Estate Accounting: A Representative's Guide

Minnesota administers estates under the Uniform Probate Code as enacted in Minn. Stat. chapter 524, article 3, before the district court, probate division, in each county. The statute and the court's own forms call the fiduciary the personal representative throughout, whether appointed under a will or without one, and this guide uses the same term (some call the role the executor or administrator instead).

Minnesota's Judicial Branch publishes two statewide forms that carry a schedule shape: PRO912, Inventory and Attachments A-E, and PRO913, whose caption reads Final Account and Proposal for Distribution (its running header and footer call it Final Account and Attachments). Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 403(b) says the statewide forms shall be used whenever a form is filed, stronger wording than the 'available for convenience' phrasing some other Uniform Probate Code states use. There is no separate statewide interim or annual account form. PRO913 carries its own Original, Amended, and Supplemental checkboxes and gets refiled in the identical shape for a later filing rather than swapped for a different form.

Minnesota's own vocabulary crosses two pairs: informal versus formal proceedings, and supervised versus unsupervised administration. An informal proceeding is handled by the registrar, without notice or a hearing; a formal proceeding goes before a judge, with notice to interested persons and a hearing. There is no separate 'independent administration' track or term in Minnesota law. The same PRO912 and PRO913 forms serve every route unchanged, whether the case opened informally or formally, and whether administration ends up supervised or unsupervised.

Filing either document with the court is optional, described by the court's own instructions as good practice, in unsupervised administration (informal, or formal but unsupervised); filing is required in supervised administration. The Judicial Branch's own instruction sheets say so directly: PRO911 walks a personal representative through closing an informal case, and PRO1301 walks through closing a formal one, and both name the identical filing pattern for PRO912 and PRO913. Whether or not either document is ever filed with the court, the underlying duty to prepare the inventory, and to prepare and mail the final account, applies to every Minnesota personal representative.

The inventory is due within six months after appointment, or nine months after the decedent's death, whichever is later. The personal representative can file it with the court or mail it, at their own choice, but a copy must reach the surviving spouse and every residuary distributee regardless; any other interested person or creditor gets one only on request (Minn. Stat. § 524.3-706).

Minn. Stat. § 524.3-719 entitles the personal representative to reasonable compensation for services, with no statutory percentage, tier, or schedule of any kind. The statute names three factors for judging what is reasonable: the time and labor required, the complexity and novelty of the problems involved, and the extent of the responsibilities assumed and the results obtained.

If a will fixes the personal representative's compensation and there is no separate contract with the decedent about it, the personal representative can renounce that provision before qualifying and take reasonable compensation instead, or renounce all or part of any fee in a writing filed with the court.

On an interested person's petition, or on the court's own motion in supervised administration, the district court can review the reasonableness of the personal representative's own fee, or of any attorney's or other agent's fee, and order a refund of anything excessive (Minn. Stat. § 524.3-721).

Whatever fee is charged has to show up on PRO913: its Attorney's Fees and Expenses and Personal Representative's Fees and Expenses sub-tables both carry an hourly rate and a number of hours feeding the amount, not a percentage of the estate.

Most unsupervised estates close informally, by sworn statement. No earlier than four months after the date of original appointment, and only once the creditor notice was first published more than four months before filing, the personal representative can file the sworn closing statement under Minn. Stat. § 524.3-1003. Before filing it, the personal representative has to have already sent a full written account, the final account, to every distributee and to any creditor or other known claimant whose claim is still unpaid and not barred. This route is not available in supervised administration.

The personal representative's appointment ends automatically one year after the closing statement is filed, as long as no proceeding involving the personal representative is then pending.

The formal route is a petition for complete settlement of the estate under Minn. Stat. § 524.3-1001, filed with the district court, probate division. The personal representative can petition at any time; any other interested person can petition once a year has passed since the original appointment. It takes notice to every interested person and a hearing, unless every heir or distributee waives the hearing in writing in a solvent estate. This route is required for supervised administration and for an insolvent estate.

PRO913's own Proposal for Distribution table gives every devisee and heir a 30-day window to object in writing once the proposal is mailed or delivered to them. Missing that window ends the right to object to the proposed distribution.

• Wait out the creditor period. You can close informally once 4 months have passed since your appointment and more than 4 months since the creditor notice was first published (Minn. Stat. §524.3-1003).
• Share the numbers and get signatures: send the final account (court form PRO913 fits) to the people receiving assets, and collect a signed Receipt for Assets by Distributee (form PRO916) from each of them as you distribute.
• File the Unsupervised Personal Representative's Statement to Close Estate (form PRO914), the sworn closing statement under §524.3-1003, and send a copy to all distributees and to creditors or claimants whose claims are neither paid nor barred.
• If someone won't cooperate or you want court-ordered finality, petition the district court's probate division for an order of complete settlement of the estate under §524.3-1001 instead.
• Keep the estate records at least a year after filing. Your appointment ends automatically one year after the closing statement is filed if no proceedings involving you are pending (§524.3-1003).

Minnesota is a Uniform Probate Code state. Probate runs through the district court (probate division; a registrar handles informal filings), most estates are unsupervised, and the informal sworn-statement route under Minn. Stat. §524.3-1003 is the norm. No judicial accounting is required unless administration is supervised or someone petitions for formal settlement.

PRO912 opens with a Summary of Assets table that adds up four attachments: Attachment A, Real Estate; Attachment B, Stocks, Bonds, and Other Securities; Attachment C, Bank Accounts, Cash, and Money Owed to the Estate; and Attachment D, Other Personal Property. Each attachment lists everything at its fair market value on the date of death, and item numbers start over at 1 on each attachment. Add the four together and the form calls the result the subtotal.

Attachment E, Mortgages, Liens, and Money the Estate Owes to Others, is a fifth attachment, and it works differently: it subtracts once, at the bottom of the page, from the subtotal to reach the true total. A ledger that never records liens has nothing to fill that attachment with, so the Attachment E line and the total below it print blank rather than a false zero, for the personal representative to complete by hand once any mortgages, liens, or debts to others are known.

PRO913, the final account, opens by carrying PRO912's own attachment totals forward, unchanged, into Block 1, Assets at Date of Death. Block 2 adds everything that increased the estate since then: interest, dividends, refunds, a gain on selling something for more than its inventory value, and so on. Block 3 subtracts everything that decreased it: a loss on a sale, funeral expenses, taxes, fees, and every interim distribution already made to a devisee or heir, which the form lists under its own Interim Distributions to Devisees and Heirs line, alongside the ordinary expense lines rather than in a schedule of its own.

A sale never posts its full price. Only the gain or loss against the asset's inventory value, its value on the date of death, goes on the account: a gain adds to Block 2, a loss subtracts in Block 3. Fees are documented the same way throughout, by the hourly rate and the number of hours worked, not a percentage of the estate.

Block 4, Assets on Hand for Distribution, lists what is left, personal property and real estate separately, backed by Attachment C's own itemized schedule. The Proposal for Distribution table names who gets what in plain language, a second, narrative view of the same remaining property that Attachment C already itemized in dollars.

Everything rolls up into the Final Summary, a two-column box that has to balance: the date-of-death total plus every increase on the left, every decrease plus everything still on hand for distribution on the right. If the two sides do not match, the form itself says to go back through the earlier sections and attachments for the error.

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 Minnesota-style documents from those records, an inventory shaped like PRO912 and an account shaped like PRO913, ready to transcribe onto the statewide forms if you end up filing them, sending copies to distributees, or handing them to your attorney. 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.