Settling Small Estates (NJ)
In New Jersey, probate is not required if the estate is small and there is no will. Regardless of estate size, probate is not required if an estate contains only assets exempt from probate.
Affidavit of Surviving Spouse
If there is no will and the value of a NJ estate does not exceed $50,000, a surviving spouse or domestic partner can request an Affidavit of Surviving Spouse from the court (see Court below), enabling the spouse to collect assets from their current custodians and to settle the estate in the normal manner: resolve any estate debts and distribute remaining assets to heirs.
Note that under these conditions, the spouse is entitled to $10K from the estate before any creditors are paid.
Here is a sample Affidavit of Surviving Spouse for Hunterdon County; check with your local Surrogate's court (see Court below) for their preferred format
You can use an Affidavit of Surviving Spouse for Motor Vehicle (Form BA-62) to obtain title of a motor vehicle.
Affidavit of Heirship
If there is no will and there is no surviving spouse or domestic partner, and if the value of a NJ estate does not exceed $20,000, an heir can request an Affidavit of Surviving Heirship from the court (see Court below), enabling the heir to collect assets from their current custodians and to settle the estate in the normal manner: resolve any estate debts and distribute remaining assets to the heirs.
Here is a sample application for an Affidavit of Next of Kin for Mercer County; check with your local Surrogate's court (see Court below) for their preferred format. Alternatively, you can use this generic NJ Small Estate Affidavit.
Estate Settlement Considerations
Before paying any debts or making any distributions, be sure to account for any Family Entitlements in NJ, which typically have priority over everything except expenses of the last illness, funeral charges, and any estate administrations expenses.
Even if the estate does not go through probate, you may still be entitled to Executor Compensation in NJ, and this compensation also has priority over most estate debts.
Estate debts have priority over most distributions in turn, so before distributing assets you should resolve any estate debts. If the estate makes any distributions beyond amounts set aside for family entitlements, unpaid creditors have the right to sue the recipients for repayment using those excess distributions. Consequently, even if the settlement process does not require you to publish a Notice to Creditors, you may want to follow NJ probate rules for finding estate debts, since doing so may limit the time creditors have to pursue repayment.
If estate solvency is uncertain, an executor should consider going through official probate for the increased creditor protection it offers. Alternately, such uncertainty can sometimes persuade creditors to forgive a portion of debts, since they will want to avoid legal expenses as well, and may prefer to get something rather than nothing.
See also Making Distributions.
No Small Estate Affidavit
Many people ask about using a small estate affidavit with no court involvement, but NJ does not support such affidavits. You must use one of the above methods (or full probate) for handling small estates in NJ.
Court
In New Jersey, the local Surrogate's Court handles estate matters. You can use this Surrogate's Court listing to find the appropriate court, or if you are using EstateExec and you enter the decedent's county of legal residence on the Decedent tab, you will see a direct link to the appropriate New Jersey Surrogates' Court here.
Additional Information
If your estate doesn't qualify for a small estate approach, or you're simply interested in exploring standard probate, take a look at Probate in NJ.
And since probate is just the court-supervised subset of winding up a person's affairs after death, you'll probably want to check out our Complete Guide to Estate Settlement in NJ.
Finally, in case you're interested, details about handling small estates in other states can be found here: