Duty of an Estate Executor to Determine Creditors of the Estate and Provide Notice of Probate in Illinois

Article written by Illinois & Iowa Attorney Kevin O’Flaherty

In this article, we explain the duty of an estate executor to determine creditors of the estate and provide notice of probate in Illinois.

When someone passes away, the person responsible for administering his or her estate (the “executor” or “administrator”) has a responsibility to determine who the deceased owed money to (known as a “creditor”) and to either pay the full amount owed from the estate or provide the creditor with proper notice of the estate.

Creditors of the estate must be paid in full prior to making distributions to beneficiaries and heirs.

If a probate case is opened, the executor must mail or hand deliver notice of the estate to all creditors that the executor knows of or can reasonably ascertain and publish notice for unknown creditors in a newspaper of general circulation in the county in which the probate case is located.

Known or reasonably ascertainable creditors have a deadline to file a claim against the estate of 2 months from the date that they received delivery of the personal notice or 6 months from the date that notice was published in the newspaper, whichever is later. If a…