Arkansas Small Estate Affidavit

The gate: section 28-41-101(a)(1)

Title 28, Chapter 41 is "Distribution Without Administration." Section 28-41-101 is titled "Collection of small estates by distributee." A distributee may collect and distribute the assets of an estate under this section without the appointment of a personal representative when all five conditions in subsection (a)(1) hold.

Condition (A) requires that no petition for appointment of a personal representative is pending or has been granted. Condition (B) requires that 45 days have elapsed since the decedent's death. Condition (C) is the cap test, stated precisely below. Condition (D) requires that one or more distributees file an affidavit with the probate clerk of the circuit court of the county of proper venue, stating the four affidavit contents below. Condition (E) requires that a clerk-certified copy of the affidavit is furnished to any person owing money, having custody of property, or acting as registrar or transfer agent.

Numbering matters. The current section has no subsection (a)(3) or (a)(4). Subsection (a) holds only paragraphs (1) and (2). The affidavit contents are subsection (a)(1)(D)(i) to (iv), and the cap is subsection (a)(1)(C)(i) to (ii). Every secondary or federal summary citing "(a)(3)" or "(a)(4)" uses pre-2017 numbering. A build citing old numbering miscites current law.

The cap test: all property, two exclusions only

The value, less encumbrances, of all property owned by the decedent at death must not exceed $100,000. "All property" means real and personal property together. When calculating that value, the homestead value and the value of any statutory allowances for a spouse or minor children, if any, shall be excluded. Those are the only exclusions stated in the cap test. The affidavit must still itemize and describe the homestead, including its legal description and valuation, even though its value is excluded from the cap calculation. Never state a personal-property-only cap, a net-of-unsecured-debts cap, or a homestead-included cap. No allowance dollar figure is carried, because the homestead and statutory-allowance sections were not opened. A higher figure proposed in a 2019 bill did not become law on any evidence read, and no higher figure is stated as law in this guide.

"Distributee" means a person entitled to real or personal property of a decedent, either by will, as an heir, or as a surviving spouse, under section 28-1-102(a)(6). No residency, age, or competency condition appears in section 28-41-101 as read. Never import one from a form or a sibling state.

Venue is the county of proper venue for administration. Under section 28-40-102(a)(1), venue is first the county where the decedent resided at death. If the decedent was a nonresident, venue falls to the county with the greater part in value of Arkansas property, then the county of death, then any county where a cause of action may be maintained by a personal representative. State the residence-first rule with the nonresident fallback. Do not state venue as only the county where the decedent lived.

The affidavit contents: four statements

The affidavit must state four matters. First, no unpaid claims or demands against the decedent or estate exist, and the Department of Human Services furnished no federal or state benefits to the decedent, or, if furnished, the Department has been reimbursed under state and federal law. That is a no-unpaid-claims statement, stricter than sibling states' pay-or-provide debt lanes. Do not soften it into "debts paid or provided for" without a separate grounding read. Second, an itemized description and valuation of personal property, and the legal description and valuation of any real property, including the homestead. Third, the names and addresses of persons having possession of personal property and of persons possessing or residing on any real property. Fourth, the names, addresses, and relationship of the persons entitled to and who will receive the property.

No bond, no hearing, no judge approval, no waiting period beyond the 45 days, and no separate court filing appear in section 28-41-101. Those absences are in-text on a full-section read, except for the bank-account paragraph below, whose conditions are stated in its own words.

The bank-account paragraph: section 28-41-101(a)(2)

Act 423 of 2021, House Bill 1449, approved March 23, 2021, and cited as "Carmack's Law" in its do-not-codify first section, added paragraph (a)(2) and renumbered the section. The amendment is a renumbering plus one new paragraph. It makes no substantive change to the gate. The 2017 act rewrote the affidavit paragraph, and the 2021 act renumbered it and added paragraph (a)(2). Never attribute the renumbering to 2017 alone or the account power to any earlier act.

Paragraph (a)(2) states, in full substance, that the distributee of an estate may open a checking account or savings account in a bank within this state, in the name of the estate and on behalf of the estate, without filing a petition for probate and administration or obtaining a court order granting a petition for probate and administration under section 28-40-101 et seq. The act's title says "make bank deposits," but the operative paragraph says open an account. This guide states the account-opening power in the paragraph's words. Title wording is never stated as the operative power.

The paragraph itself states no 45-day wait, no affidavit filing, no $100,000 cap, no unpaid-claims averment, and no "under this section" qualifier. Do not import the paragraph (a)(1) gate conditions into paragraph (a)(2) as if the paragraph stated them, and do not state paragraph (a)(2) as a freestanding unconditional power either. The paragraph sits inside section 28-41-101(a), immediately after the paragraph (a)(1) gate, and this guide states that placement and lets the reader see both paragraphs. What is dispensed with is only the section 28-40-101 et seq. petition and court-order route. The paragraph names no bank duty, and no bank-acceptance, bank-discharge, or bank-reliance language appears. Never state that a bank must open the account. No purpose clause, findings, or backstory for the act's name appears in the act, and none is stated here. The act states no emergency clause and no effective-date clause, and no effective date is asserted in this guide. Whether any post-2021 session law touched the paragraph is unestablished in the banked research, and a live current-text re-check is owed.

Clerk, fees, and publication

The clerk files the affidavit, assigns a number, and indexes it under section 28-1-108(1). The charge is $25.00 for filing plus $5.00 per certified copy. An order of the court or other proceeding is not necessary. No additional fee applies if a will is attached. The $5.00 certified-copy figure dates to 2011, when it replaced $3.00. Older $3.00 figures are stale.

Publication is mandatory, not optional, and it applies only where the estate contains real property. Personal-property-only estates have no publication step in section 28-41-101. Where real property is included, the distributee shall cause notice of death and affidavit filing to be published within 30 days after the affidavit is filed. The notice must be in substantially the statutory form: decedent name, last address, and date of death; filing date; claims to be exhibited, properly verified, to the distributee or attorney within three months of first publication or forever barred and precluded; distributee or attorney name, mailing address, and telephone; and first-publication date. Pre-2011 "may cause, promptly" wording is stale law.

Effect, deed, and the claim-presented fork: section 28-41-102

Section 28-41-102 must be kept apart from section 28-41-101. A person paying, transferring, or delivering under the affidavit is released as if to a personal representative, need not see to the application of the property, and need not inquire into the truth of affidavit statements. A distributee receiving payment, transfer, or delivery holds as trustee, answerable to any person with a prior right and accountable to any later-appointed personal representative. Where notice is published as provided by section 101, all claims as to real property are forever barred at the end of three months after first publication of the first notice, not six. Liens, mortgages, and pledges under contract or statute are unaffected.

If the affidavit recipient refuses, property may be recovered, or delivery compelled, in a court action by or on behalf of the entitled distributee on proof of the affidavit facts. If the real-property distributee complies with the section 101 affidavit and notice requirements, the three-month period lapses, and no claim was presented in three months, or all presented claims are satisfied, the distributee is authorized to issue to himself or herself a deed of distribution as if made by a personal representative, and shall deliver notice of transfer of ownership to the county assessor of each county where the real property sits.

The claim-presented fork in subsection (e), added in 2017, is the distinctive Arkansas trap. If a claim is presented within three months of first publication, the distributee shall file a petition for administration under section 28-40-101 et seq., unless the claim is satisfied without using property owned by the decedent at death, in which case the claimant presents an acknowledgment of the satisfied claim. A petition filed under this fork requires new notice under section 28-40-111, because the section 101 publication is expressly insufficient, a new filing fee, and no credit or refund of the affidavit filing fee. A build that stops at "publish and wait three months" misstates the track.

Companion tracks, kept apart

Section 28-41-103 is a different, court-order track. Where the court determines on an interested person's petition that the decedent's personal property does not exceed what the surviving spouse or minor children are entitled to free of debt as dower or courtesy plus statutory allowances, the court may order the entire estate vested in the spouse or minor children. The petition may be granted without notice, and the order must specifically describe the property and is itself authority for payment or transfer. No dollar figure, no 45 days, and no affidavit apply. Never merge it with section 101. Section 28-41-104 allows the court, within one year after a section 103 order, for good cause, on an interested person's petition or its own motion, to set the order aside. It applies to section 103 orders only as written and is never stated as a section 101 revocation window.

Form 23: vendor copy only, official PDF unreachable

Form 23, Affidavit for Collection of Small Estate by Distributee, was read in full only in a vendor copy. Its body tracks the statute on the $100,000 test, the 45-day statement, and the affidavit contents, followed by a clerk certificate. No notary block appears in that copy. The form states "on oath" in its preamble, and this guide makes no claim about whether notarization is or is not required. The Reporter's Notes on the form copy are stale and are never carried: they cite pre-2017 numbering and state the pre-2011 "publish promptly" wording. The official Arkansas Judiciary form page was unreachable in the banked research, with a DNS failure on the legacy courts URL and the current forms page unopened. The build re-read of the current official Form 23 PDF is owed, and form averments are never carried as statute. County form copies were not harmonized into statute.

For small-estate procedures in other states, see the Small Estate Affidavits by State directory. For the questions each state's procedure answers, see Small Estate Affidavit Questions.

Source

Sources: Arkansas Code sections 28-41-101 and 28-41-102, Justia 2025 full texts, corroborated in part by the arcode Title 28 mirror for pre-2021 paragraphs; sections 28-1-102, 28-40-102, 28-41-103, and 28-41-104 via the arcode mirror; Act 423 of 2021, Arkansas Legislature act PDF, read in full; Form 23 via the eForms vendor copy, vendor tier only. Facts verified 2026-10-31, with Act 423 and Form 23 read 2026-11-01. Open flags: (1) the official courts.arkansas.gov Form 23 PDF was unreachable, so form contents rest on a vendor copy and the official re-read is owed; (2) a live current-text re-check of sections 28-41-101 and 28-41-102, including any post-2021 amendment, is owed; (3) homestead and statutory-allowance dollar figures were not opened, so none are stated; (4) sections 28-1-108, 28-1-112, and 28-40-111 publication mechanics were not opened; (5) the five-year limit in section 28-40-103 was not grounded for section 101 and no deadline is stated; (6) no vehicle title-transfer provision was opened.

This page explains how the process works and what the official rules say. It is general information, not legal advice. For a dispute about your specific situation, talk to the Arkansas circuit court or a lawyer.