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Delaware route screening

Delaware small-estate limit: $50,000

Sources reviewed August 9, 2026. Latest primary-source re-fetch October 3, 2026.

1. Where and when
2. What they left

Asset 1

Asset 2

Ownership determines whether an asset usually enters probate. Choose “Not sure” when title or beneficiary status has not been confirmed.

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Your working estimate

Delaware estate snapshot

Route check

More information is needed

Counted probate estate: not yet counted

A valid date of death is required before any waiting period can be tested.

Gross probate propertyNot yet counted
Court chargeSet locallyDelaware probate filing fees are set at the county level by each Register of Wills (New Castle, Kent, Sussex) acting as an arm of the Court of Chancery; there is no statewide statutory opening-fee figure. Fees typically scale with estate value under each county's published schedule. Apply the county-variability doctrine: the statewide figure is an honest unknown with an official Register of Wills pointer.
Scheduled executor compensationMore information needed2 asset entries have no value entered.Court of Chancery Rule 192 governs: commissions of personal representatives, and the fees of the attorneys who represent them, shall be allowed in a reasonable amount. Rule 192(b) lists the factors used to fix a reasonable figure — time spent, risk and responsibility, novelty and difficulty of the questions, skill and experience, any will provision on compensation, comparable local rates, and the character and value of the estate assets — and provides that commissions and fees are not unreasonable merely because based on hourly rates, on the value of the probate estate, or on the value of assets. Delaware publishes no percentage schedule; the amount is set case-by-case by the court.

This route check is general information, not legal advice. It does not test every eligibility condition, creditor issue, will provision, local fee, or asset-title fact.

Under 12 Del. C. 2306 a qualifying successor (spouse, grandparent or a grandparent's lineal descendant, a licensed funeral director, or the named executor, among others) may take the decedent's personal estate for distribution without a grant of letters or probate by executing an affidavit that: no PR is pending or granted; thirty days have elapsed since death; the value of the personal estate (excluding property described in 12 Del. C. 1901(b) and (c) and jointly owned property) does not exceed $50,000; all known debts are paid or provided for; the surviving-spouse allowance under 2308 is satisfied; and the decedent did not own real estate in Delaware. It does not transfer real estate.

Threshold evidence and currency

What the reviewed source establishes

Currency: No later session-law supersession is recorded in the reviewed source set for this threshold. The edition/currentness label below is the basis for the published figure.

Controlling citation: 12 Del. C. 2306 — 85 Del. Laws, c. 281, § 1.

Verbatim threshold text from that source:

(2) Thirty days have elapsed since the death of the decedent. (3) The value of the personal estate of the decedent other than property described in § 1901(b) and (c) of this title and other than jointly owned property, does not exceed $50,000.

How the Delaware screen is measured

ProcedureDistribution without grant of letters (small estate affidavit) (12 Del. C. 2306)
What countsPersonal property only; real property is outside this route
Value basisGross value less exempt property the worksheet cannot classify
Waiting period30 days after death

The Delaware caveats that can change this answer are listed once, on the Delaware overview.

The official Delaware path

What a small-estate screen can and cannot decide, and which assets never enter it, is explained once in small-estate affidavit or probate and what counts as a probate asset.

What Delaware’s $50,000 affidavit route actually requires

12 Del. C. § 2306 is titled "Distribution of decedent’s property without grant of letters where estate assets do not exceed $50,000." It lets a defined group take the personal estate for the purpose of distributing it "without awaiting the appointment of a personal representative or probate of a will," on an affidavit sworn to under oath.

The affidavit has to attest to six things, and they are cumulative: that no petition for appointment of a personal representative is pending or granted; that thirty days have elapsed since the death; that the value of the personal estate — excluding property described in § 1901(b) and (c) and excluding jointly owned property — does not exceed $50,000; that all known debts are paid or provided for; that the surviving spouse’s allowance under § 2308 has been paid, provided for, waived, or has lapsed; and that the decedent "did not own real estate in Delaware, either solely or as tenants in common."

That last condition is the one that most often ends the route. Delaware does not offer a reduced-price real-property affidavit here: any solely owned or tenant-in-common Delaware real estate takes the estate out of § 2306 entirely, regardless of how small the personal estate is.

Subsection (b) sets an order of preference for who receives the personal estate to distribute it: first the qualified named executor, then the spouse, then any child, parent, sibling, grandchild or grandparent, then a Delaware-licensed funeral director — "in that order." Among everyone else entitled under subsection (a) there is expressly no order of preference.

Source: 12 Del. C. § 2306, read from the enacting state’s own published code on 2026-09-17. Quoted wording is the statute’s; the surrounding explanation is this site’s reading of it and is not legal advice.

Controlling source

Delaware record: 4/4 verified, 16 matched checks, latest source re-fetch October 3, 2026. Source record · method · report a correction

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