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Kentucky source record

Every source behind the Kentucky guide

5 primary records, quoted verbatim and checked against 17 named presence or absence conditions that must pass against the live government text. Open the record, read the words the publishing body actually used, and confirm the current rule for yourself.

Last full re-fetch October 3, 2026

What each source establishes

The Kentucky guide rests on the source-backed rules this site can verify for the state: which simplified procedure exists and what it limits, what the court charges, how the person administering the estate may be paid, and the statutory creditor-deadline clocks the official text states.Every published rule below is quoted in the publisher’s own words rather than summarised.

Simplified-procedure rule

KRS 395.455

Kentucky Legislature (Kentucky Revised Statutes) · E f f ec t iv e: J u ly 1 5 , 2 0 2 6 · Verified August 9, 2026

the c o urt may orde r that a dmi n ist ra ti on of the e stat e be disp e nse d with

What this means: Harvested text has per-letter spacing (the aspx renderer inserts spaces between glyphs); quotes are exact substrings including those spaces. Effective July 15, 2026 (Amended 2026 Ky. Acts ch. 134) — current.

What was published from this source

  • KY KRS 395.455

Conditions checked against the live text

Each condition below must be found in the page as the publisher currently serves it. If any one of them stops matching, the build fails and the figure is withheld rather than published from memory.

  • court may dispense with administration
  • exemption cross-reference to KRS 391.030
  • section identity KRS 395.455
  • section identity

Response digest e2e11c26a9d11bea… · HTTP 200

Simplified-procedure rule

KRS 391.030

Kentucky Legislature (Kentucky Revised Statutes) · E f f ec t iv e: J u ly 1 5 , 2 0 2 0 · Verified August 9, 2026

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.

What was published from this source

  • KY KRS 391.030

Conditions checked against the live text

Each condition below must be found in the page as the publisher currently serves it. If any one of them stops matching, the build fails and the figure is withheld rather than published from memory.

  • exemption $30,000 personal property
  • section identity KRS 391.030
  • section identity

Response digest c21cc02ebcd04223… · HTTP 200

Executor compensation rule

KRS 395.150

Kentucky Legislature (Kentucky Revised Statutes) · E f f ec t iv e: Octo b er 1 , 1 9 4 2 · Verified August 9, 2026

sha ll not e x c e e d five pe rc e nt (5% ) of the va lue of the pe rsona l e state of the de c e de nt, plus five pe rc e nt (5% ) of the income c oll e c ted

What this means: 5% ceiling on the value of the personal estate PLUS 5% of income collected — base is personal estate, not real property. Letter-spaced text; quote is an exact substring.

What was published from this source

  • KY KRS 395.150

Conditions checked against the live text

Each condition below must be found in the page as the publisher currently serves it. If any one of them stops matching, the build fails and the figure is withheld rather than published from memory.

  • comp ceiling 5% personal estate + 5% income
  • section identity KRS 395.150
  • section identity

Response digest 79d167bfb9361e8b… · HTTP 200

Court cost rule

KRS 64.012

Kentucky Legislature (Kentucky Revised Statutes) · E f f ec t iv e: J u ly 1 5 , 2 0 2 6 · Verified August 9, 2026

five (5) pa g e s ................................ ................................ ......... $33.00

What this means: This is the county-CLERK RECORDING fee schedule ($33.00 to record a will or other probate document of ≤5 pages), NOT the District Court estate-opening cost. Included to be explicit about what the $33 does and does not represent. Letter-spaced text; quote is an exact substring. Effective July 15, 2026 (current).

What was published from this source

  • KY KRS 64.012

Conditions checked against the live text

Each condition below must be found in the page as the publisher currently serves it. If any one of them stops matching, the build fails and the figure is withheld rather than published from memory.

  • clerk recording fee $33 for will ≤5 pages
  • will/probate document recording item
  • section identity KRS 64.012
  • section identity

Response digest 29e44a9fdc9c9258… · HTTP 200

Creditor deadline rule

KRS 396.011

Kentucky Legislature (Kentucky Revised Statutes) · E f f ec t iv e: J u n e 2 9 , 2 0 2 1 · Verified August 9, 2026

unless pre se nted withi n six (6) mont hs a fte r the a ppoint ment of the pe rsona l re pre se ntative, or whe re no pe rsona l re pre se ntative ha s be e n a ppoint e d, withi n two ( 2) y e a rs a fte r the de c e de nt' s de a th.

What this means: Kentucky's official statute pages render with per-character spacing; the quote and assertions are verbatim substrings of that spacing, and assertion regexes tolerate the whitespace with \s+ between tokens, matching the neighboring KY sources.

What was published from this source

  • KY KRS 396.011

Conditions checked against the live text

Each condition below must be found in the page as the publisher currently serves it. If any one of them stops matching, the build fails and the figure is withheld rather than published from memory.

  • KY 6-month appointment bar and 2-year outer bar
  • KY 396.011 section identity
  • section identity

Response digest c6d0a6d3a0d44277… · HTTP 200

Statutes read in full for Kentucky

Read on the enacting state’s own site, with the date each was read.

CitationWhat reading it establishedRead on
KRS 64.012Kentucky prices a will by the page, and exempts it from the surcharge — court and filing cost note2026-09-17
KRS 395.455, 395.470Kentucky has no small-estate dollar ceiling — it dispenses with administration instead — small estate route note2026-09-17
KRS 395.150Kentucky’s 5% rule has stood unamended since 1942, and it taxes income separately — representative pay note2026-09-17

What Kentucky courts publish

Every link is probed before each release.

No Kentucky court document is linked here. The notes below state why, rather than leaving the absence unexplained.

Limits on court material

  • Probate in Kentucky is heard in the District Court. The Kentucky Court of Justice self-help/forms site (kycourts.gov) could NOT be pinned under the HTTP-200 rule: automated requests are intercepted by a WAF that returns 403 (no browser headers) or a 302 challenge/404 (with browser headers), never a clean 200. A human must add the kycourts.gov Legal Forms / self-help links. The only stably-reachable official Kentucky resource verified at HTTP 200 is the Legislature’s statute portal (apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/), which is the primary-law source rather than a court forms hub.

Checking these Kentucky records against the publishers

Every citation above links to the body that publishes it, and every quoted sentence is reproduced exactly, so a text search on the publisher’s own page should land on it. Where the publisher’s current wording differs from what is recorded here, the publisher governs and this page is wrong; naming the citation and the language you see maps the difference onto a specific condition rather than a general complaint. The full procedure, including how a source qualifies in the first place and what disqualifies one, is set out once on the methodology page instead of being restated on each of the267 state records.

These records cover the cost and route questions this site answers for Kentucky. They do not cover intestate succession shares, spousal and family allowances, creditor priority, tax filing obligations, real-property transfer mechanics, or contested proceedings. Where an answer would require one of those, the site says so rather than estimating.

Return to the Kentucky estate guide ·All 267 records ·Dataset overview and citation ·How sources are selected