Alabama timeline
Alabama probate timeline: the 30-day wait and creditor deadlines
The simplified route starts 30 days after death.
Alabama creditor deadlines are set out below against the event each one runs from.
Sources reviewed August 9, 2026. Latest primary-source re-fetch October 3, 2026.
The one date this page can source
The summary distribution of small estate (ala. code §§ 43-2-690 to 43-2-692) route requires 30 days to elapse from the date of death. This is a precondition: the affidavit or petition cannot be presented before it runs, regardless of how straightforward the estate is.
At least 30 days have elapsed since the notice of the filing of the petition was published as provided in subsectionAla. Code § 43-2-692 — Alabama Legislature (Code of Alabama 1975); (Acts 1975, 3rd Ex. Sess., No. 145, §3; Act 2009-399, p. 724, §1; Act 2025-431,.
Creditor deadlines
Claims must be presented within six months after the grant of letters, OR within five months from the date of first publication of notice, whichever is the later to occur; claims not so presented and filed are forever barred (Ala. Code § 43-2-350). The six-month period runs from the grant of letters (appointment), so the modelled figure is 180 days from the grant, extended when the publication-based five-month period ends later.
within six months after the grant of letters, or within five months from the date of the first publication of notice, whichever is the later to occurAla. Code § 43-2-350 — Alabama Legislature (Code of Alabama 1975); Acts 1989, No. 89-811, p. 1618, §3.).
The Alabama creditor period is left unstated here for the same reason, and the risk of guessing it is higher
Alabama’s claim provisions are in Title 43, Chapter 2. They could not be read on the date below: the state’s code site returns a script-driven application shell, and the two third-party mirrors tried returned HTTP 403 and HTTP 410 respectively — one refusing automated access, the other reporting the document permanently gone.
A creditor deadline is the single most consequential figure on this site to get wrong, because it is the only one where acting on a stale number destroys a right rather than costing money. A fee quoted too low is corrected at the counter. A claim presented after the bar is gone.
The states whose text this site could read show how wide the spread is, and therefore how little a neighbour predicts. Delaware runs eight months from the death and does not require notice to have been published; North Dakota runs three months from publication and mailing together, with a three-year fallback if neither happened; Massachusetts runs one year from the date of death with a service requirement attached; Illinois names no period at all and defers to the date printed on the notice, backstopped at two years. An Alabama figure inferred from any of these would have no better than a one-in-four claim to being right.
Anyone working to an Alabama deadline should take it from the probate court handling the estate, or from counsel reading the current chapter, rather than from any page — including this one — that could not open the statute.
Authority that would settle this: Code of Alabama, tit. 43, ch. 2 (presentation of claims). The access attempt described above was made on 2026-09-17. Nothing is quoted from it, because nothing could be read from it; a figure restated from a secondary summary would look like a sourced answer without being one.
General sequence: first week, how long probate takes.
Alabama record: 7/7 verified, 23 matched checks, latest source re-fetch October 3, 2026. Source record · method · report a correction