SDCL 29A-3-1003 prescribes four things this statement must say, and they are recited below in the statute’s own order and numbering. It prescribes nothing about the shape of the accounting it requires: not a schedule, not a column, not a heading. The account further down this page is this product’s own presentation of the estate’s own records, in the standard fiduciary charge-and-discharge form, not a shape South Dakota law requires.

This document is for the ordinary unsupervised route. SDCL 29A-3-1003(a) does not let a personal representative close this way where the court has prohibited it, or where the estate is being administered in supervised administration. That estate closes under SDCL 29A-3-1001 instead, by an order of complete settlement.

SDCL 29A-3-1003(c): any accounting required under this section may be waived if the persons entitled to a copy consent in writing. If everyone entitled has consented in writing, the account below is not required to close this estate.

(1) The personal representative has determined that the time limit for presentation of creditors’ claims has expired, or has made a diligent search for the creditors of the estate and affirms, to the best of the personal representative’s knowledge, information and belief, that all known creditors have been paid in full and that any other creditors of the decedent are unknown and could not, with reasonable diligence, be ascertained.

Date the claims period expired, if that branch applies:

(2) The personal representative has determined that all inheritance taxes and state estate taxes due from the estate have been duly determined and are fully paid.

South Dakota’s inheritance tax, SDCL 10-40, and its estate tax, SDCL 10-40A, were both repealed by SL 2014, ch 59. This recital is satisfied at nil: there is no inheritance tax and no state estate tax for this estate to have paid.

(3) The personal representative has fully administered the estate of the decedent by making payment, settlement, or other disposition of all claims that were properly presented, expenses of administration and other charges, except as specified in this statement, and the assets of the estate have been distributed to the persons so entitled.

Anything excepted from that, and specified here:

If any claim remains undischarged, this statement says which is true: the estate was distributed subject to possible liability with the agreement of the distributees, or other arrangements were made to accommodate outstanding liabilities, detailed here:

(4) The personal representative has sent a copy of this statement and a full accounting to all heirs and devisees who are entitled to distribution of and from the remaining assets of the estate, and to all known creditors and other claimants whose claims are neither paid nor barred. The account below, unless waived under 29A-3-1003(c) above, is what this recital means by a full accounting.

This statement may not be filed earlier than four months after the date of original appointment of a general personal representative (SDCL 29A-3-1003). That is the earliest it may be filed, not a due date, and it is not four months from the date of death.

Date of original appointment:

If no proceeding involving the personal representative is pending in the court one year after this statement is filed, the appointment terminates (SDCL 29A-3-1003(b)).