Massachusetts timeline
Massachusetts probate timeline: the 30-day wait and creditor deadlines
The simplified route starts 30 days after death.
Massachusetts 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 voluntary administration / collection of personal property by affidavit 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.
If a person domiciled in the commonwealth dies leaving an estate consisting entirely of personal property the total value of which may include a motor vehicle of which the decedent was the owner, and other personal property not exceeding $25,000 in value, any interested personG.L. c. 190B, § 3-1201 — Massachusetts Legislature; verified October 3, 2026.
Creditor deadlines
- Outer limit, running from death
- General civil action must commence within 1 year after death, subject to statutory exceptions and equitable relief.
How these combine. Section 3-803 states a general one-year-from-death action limit but also contains exceptions and equitable relief; § 3-801 is reserved. It cannot honestly be collapsed into publication, actual-notice, appointment, and outer-limit deadlines as one number.
a personal representative shall not be held to answer to an action by a creditor of the deceased unless such action is commenced within 1 year after the date of death of the deceasedG.L. c. 190B, § 3-803 — Massachusetts Legislature; verified October 3, 2026.
Massachusetts gives creditors a year, and measures it from the death itself
Massachusetts did not adopt the publish-then-count structure used by the other uniform-code states on this site. Under G.L. c. 190B, § 3-803(a), a personal representative "shall not be held to answer to an action by a creditor of the deceased unless such action is commenced within 1 year after the date of death of the deceased" — and unless, before that year runs out, the process has been served in hand on the representative, or service accepted, or a notice filed with the register stating the name of the estate, the name and address of the creditor, the amount of the claim and the court in which the action was brought.
Two things follow. The deadline requires a commenced action, not a presented claim: a letter to the representative does not stop the clock. And the year runs from death, so nothing the estate does or fails to publish moves it.
Subsection (b) closes the obvious escape route. A trustee of a trust whose assets are, as a matter of substantive law, reachable by the decedent’s creditors is protected on the same terms and within the same year, and has immunity from personal liability in the same manner as a personal representative under § 3-807. Funding a revocable trust does not create a separate, longer exposure.
Subsection (d) preserves two categories outside the bar. Proceedings to enforce a mortgage, pledge or other lien on estate property are unaffected. So is an action for personal injury or death brought against the personal representative more than a year after the death — provided it is commenced no later than three years after the cause of action accrues, and provided any judgment "shall only be satisfied from the proceeds of a policy of liability bond or liability insurance, if any, and not from the general assets of the estate." Subsection (c) adds that a claim already barred by the statute of the decedent’s domicile is barred in the Commonwealth as well.
Source: G.L. c. 190B, § 3-803, 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.
General sequence: first week, how long probate takes.
Massachusetts record: 4/4 verified, 16 matched checks, latest source re-fetch October 3, 2026. Source record · method · report a correction