Kentucky route screening
Kentucky does not use a single dollar-capped small-estate affidavit; two distinct mechanisms interact.
Sources reviewed August 9, 2026. Latest primary-source re-fetch October 3, 2026.
(1) Surviving spouse/children exemption (KRS 391.030): personal property or money on hand or in a bank or other depository up to thirty thousand dollars ($30,000) is exempt and passes to the surviving spouse, or if none to the surviving children — a set-aside, not a whole-estate procedure. (2) Dispensing with administration (KRS 395.455): a SEPARATE court order. Where the exemption for the surviving spouse or children under KRS 391.030, alone or together with preferred claims, equals or exceeds the amount of distributable assets, the court may order that administration of the estate be dispensed with and the assets transferred to the surviving spouse or children (or to a preferred creditor who paid preferred claims). The $30,000 figure is the KRS 391.030 exemption that drives the § 395.455 arithmetic; it is not itself a filing threshold. The relevant base is personal property/money on hand or in a bank.
Threshold evidence and currency
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: KRS 391.030 — E f f ec t iv e: J u ly 1 5 , 2 0 2 0.
Verbatim threshold text from that source:
P e rsona l prope rty or money on ha nd or in a ba nk or other de posi tory to t he a mount of thi rty thous a nd doll a rs ($30, 000) sha ll be e x e mpt
| Procedure | Surviving-spouse/children $30,000 exemption (KRS 391.030); dispensing with administration when exemption plus preferred claims cover the estate (KRS 395.455) |
|---|---|
| What counts | Personal property only; real property is outside this route |
| Value basis | Gross value; liens are not subtracted |
| Waiting period | Not verified, so no number is published |
KRS 395.455 conditions dispensing with administration on the exempt-property/preferred-claims arithmetic rather than a fixed waiting period; no statutory waiting-day figure was stated in the harvested text.
The Kentucky caveats that can change this answer are listed once, on the Kentucky overview.
No statewide form is published for this route; ask the District Court in the county of residence for its packet.
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.
Most states answer “when can we skip probate?” with a number. Kentucky answers it with a comparison. Under KRS 395.455, where the exemption for the surviving spouse or children, alone or together with preferred claims paid by the spouse or children, equals or exceeds the amount of distributable assets, the court may order that administration be dispensed with and the assets transferred to the surviving spouse, or if there is none, to the surviving children or a person the spouse designates.
The test is therefore relative, not absolute: a larger estate with larger preferred claims can qualify where a smaller one with none does not. The court may make the order in both testate and intestate estates without requiring renunciation of a will, and under subsection (2), where it is satisfied that no distributable estate will pass through a personal representative’s hands, it may order that no letters of administration issue and that a will be probated only. Subsection (3) extends the same relief in favour of a preferred creditor or other person where the spouse or children have waived the exemption in favour of someone who paid preferred claims.
A second, wholly separate route runs through KRS 395.470, which dispenses with administration by written agreement. It requires that there be no debts owing by the estate; that all beneficiaries entitled to the personal estate agree in writing, under penalty of perjury, that there be no further administration, designating a trustee with power to collect claims and demands where applicable; that advertisement has occurred as required by subsection (7), evidenced by an acknowledgment under penalty of perjury; that provision has been made for the state inheritance tax and the federal estate tax if any; and that there are no claims or demands due the estate where no trustee has been designated.
The agreements of all beneficiaries are filed in the District Court together with the motion. An agreement is effective if executed by a person who had authority to contract on behalf of a beneficiary when signed — a point that matters where a beneficiary acts through an attorney-in-fact.
Source: KRS 395.455, 395.470, 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.
Reviewed source note: P e rsona l prope rty or money on ha nd or in a ba nk or other de posi tory to t he a mount of thi rty thous a nd doll a rs ($30, 000) sha ll be e x e mpt
What this means: Sets the surviving-spouse/children personal-property exemption at thirty thousand dollars ($30,000) — the figure KRS 395.455 uses to decide whether administration can be dispensed with. Letter-spaced text; quote is an exact substring. Effective July 15, 2020.
Kentucky record: 5/5 verified, 17 matched checks, latest source re-fetch October 3, 2026. Source record · method · report a correction