Illinois probate runs on a set of filings and deadlines that start the moment letters are issued. This guide walks you through each step with the actual statute citation and the current small estate threshold.
Illinois recognizes 2 paths. The right one depends on the will, the value of the estate, and whether all beneficiaries agree.
Default unless will forbids. Representative appears in court only at opening and closing. Can sell assets and distribute without court approval.
Court approval required for major actions. Inventory and accounting filed with court. More expensive and time-consuming.
These are the filings ordered the way they actually happen in a typical Illinois estate. Each deadline is keyed to the triggering event — death, letters issued, first publication — and tied to the statute.
File original will with Circuit Court Probate Division within 30 days of death or discovering executor role.
File Petition for Probate and Letters Testamentary (with will) or Petition for Letters of Administration (no will).
Publish notice once weekly for 3 successive weeks in county newspaper within 14 days of will admission.
File verified inventory of real and personal estate with approximate market values.
Wait for creditor claims deadline. 6 months from first publication or 3 months from mailing, whichever is later.
Independent: mail accounting to interested parties 30 days before final report. Supervised: file with court.
Distribute assets per will or Illinois intestacy law. Document all distributions.
File Final Report/Verified Report. Court issues Order of Discharge after 42+ days with no objections.
After the personal representative is appointed, a notice to creditors must be published weekly for 3 weeks. Creditors then have a limited window to file claims; claims filed after the deadline are generally barred.
Direct mailing is also required to All heirs and legatees, Known creditors.
If the gross estate is small enough, Illinois allows a simplified path that skips most of the formal probate machinery. Faster, cheaper, and — done right — every bit as final.
Most states don’t charge a separate state-level death tax — but Illinois does. Here’s what applies in addition to the federal estate tax (currently $13,990,000 exemption).
Return: Illinois Estate Tax Return · Deadline: 9 months from death
Probate is filed in the county where the decedent lived at the time of death. A sample of active Illinois courts:
The Illinois Probate Act of 1975 (755 ILCS 5/) is the spine, but the practice-level reality is that Cook County's Decedent Estates Section, the five collar counties, and downstate circuits each run their own way of doing things. Mandatory e-filing has covered all 102 counties since 2018 — but original wills still go across the counter on paper, and each Cook County probate judge publishes their own standing order on courtesy copies and virtual hearings. Here's the color a Chicago or DuPage-based attorney would give you before you file.
Clerk's Probate Office: Room 1202, (312) 603-6441. Non-evidentiary status and motion hearings default to Zoom; in-person hearings run in Room 1814. Evidentiary hearings on heirship and contested estates happen in person on Calendars 2, 7, 8, 11, and 25. Each probate judge publishes their own standing order with courtesy-copy rules (typically single PDF ≤25 pages, 2–5 business days before the hearing) — a template workflow has to be judge-aware.
Probate and Guardianship Division. Everything e-files through I2File / eFileIL; the one universal exception is the original will, which must be physically deposited at the Clerk's office. Approximate decedent-estate administration filing fee: $398 (pull the current fee schedule — DuPage rates change year to year).
Probate Division line: (847) 377-3260. Since September 2021, Lake strictly enforces AOIC statewide standardized forms — if the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts publishes a form, the local version is retired and rejected on filing.
GAL (guardian ad litem) selection for probate matters runs through a formal court-services directory, not off judicial whim — matters with minor heirs or contested capacity cases get the GAL assigned from the published list.
Probate calls happen in Courtroom 110. Kane maintains unusually detailed Article 8 local rules (Articles 8.00–8.25) covering bond, inventory, periodic accountings, claims, and fee allowance. Read them before filing a Kane matter.
Under 755 ILCS 5/8-1, the petition to contest runs from the order admitting the will to probate. A delayed probate opening effectively extends the contest window. If you suspect undue influence, the date you care about is the admission date in the probate order — not the date on the death certificate.
The surviving spouse's right to take a statutory share instead of under the will (1/3 with descendants, 1/2 without) expires 7 months after the will is admitted. An extension is only available if the spouse petitions within that 7-month window. Waiting to see how the case unfolds is how spouses lose this right.
An Illinois Transfer on Death Instrument for real estate (755 ILCS 27/) is revoked only by (a) a later recorded TODI, (b) a recorded instrument of revocation executed with the same formalities, or (c) a new recorded deed transferring the property. A provision in a will doesn't do it. People redo their estate plan, forget the old TODI is recorded at the county, and leave the house to the wrong beneficiary.
Surviving spouse gets not less than $20,000 plus $10,000 per dependent child living with the spouse (755 ILCS 5/15-1); adult dependent children get ≥$5,000 (5/15-1(a-5)); minor/dependent children not living with a surviving spouse get ≥$10,000 each (5/15-2). These sit above almost every creditor claim. In a thin estate, the family award can wipe out the unsecured creditors entirely.
The SEA threshold went up to $150,000 in August 2025, but the rule that real property in the decedent's sole name kicks the estate out of SEA is unchanged. Joint-tenancy real estate doesn't count; TODI-designated real estate doesn't count; a single parcel in the decedent's own name ends the shortcut.
755 ILCS 5/18-3 requires publication once a week for 3 successive weeks plus direct mailing to every reasonably ascertainable creditor. The clock runs 6 months from first publication OR 3 months from mailing, whichever is later. Sophisticated representatives mail early — ideally within 3 months of first publication — so the two windows close together.
Under 755 ILCS 5/18-12(b), claims are barred 2 years after death regardless of whether letters have ever been issued. But a creditor who wasn't given proper 18-3 notice can push through to that 2-year outer line. Delaying probate doesn't buy the estate more time; it just shortens the creditors' effective window.
Unlike the federal system, Illinois doesn't let a surviving spouse inherit the first-to-die spouse's unused $4M exemption. A couple with a $7M combined estate and a 'leave it all to my spouse' will loses the first spouse's $4M exemption entirely. The standard fix is a credit-shelter trust or an Illinois-only QTIP election at the first death.
Illinois permits a QTIP election independent from the federal QTIP election — the executor can shelter the first death's $4M exemption at the Illinois level while keeping federal flexibility. This is the post-death planning move that keeps showing up in sophisticated Illinois estates.
755 ILCS 5/28-11 requires the independent representative to mail a verified accounting to every interested person at least 30 days before filing the verified report that closes the estate. Independent reps often assume 'no court filings = no accountings' and skip this — it's one of the most common bases for a beneficiary objection to closing.
755 ILCS 5/16-1 and 5/16-2 let the representative (or any interested person) force third parties to appear and testify about where estate assets went, and to recover property transferred away pre-death under suspected undue influence. In Cook, the Decedent Estates Section routinely handles these without moving to a separate civil case — it's the primary elder-abuse recovery mechanism.
Illinois has required e-filing for civil cases (including probate) in all 102 counties since January 1, 2018 — but the original will itself must be physically deposited with the Clerk. DuPage states this explicitly; Cook and the rest follow from the Supreme Court Rule 9(c) carve-out. Attorneys who courier the will to a paralegal for scanning still need to make a second trip to the clerk's counter.
Exact figures vary by county and by the specific circuit clerk — your matched Illinois attorney will confirm filing costs before anything is filed.
Most Illinois estates close in 9–15 months. The floor is set by the creditor claim period (later of 6 months from first publication or 3 months from mailed notice.) plus the time to file inventory, settle debts, and prepare the final accounting. Estates with real property sales, tax returns, or disputes run longer.
Yes. If the gross estate is $150,000 or less (excluding vehicles) and at least 30 days have passed since the date of death, you can generally use a small estate affidavit or collection procedure instead of full probate. Citation: 755 ILCS 5/25-1.
Illinois recognizes independent or supervised administration. independent — Default unless will forbids. Representative appears in court only at opening and closing. Can sell assets and distribute without court approval. supervised — Court approval required for major actions. Inventory and accounting filed with court. More expensive and time-consuming.
After the personal representative is appointed, a notice to creditors must be published weekly in a qualifying newspaper for 3 weeks. Creditors then have later of 6 months from first publication or 3 months from mailed notice. Claims filed after the deadline are barred. Citation: 755 ILCS 5/18-3.
Illinois law doesn't strictly require an attorney, but most personal representatives retain one. Court rules, creditor notice requirements, tax returns, and fiduciary accounting obligations create personal liability for the personal representative if they're done incorrectly. A flat-fee attorney through Closewell handles filings, statutory notices, inventory, and accounting with fixed pricing and no hourly billing.
Court filing fees in Illinois typically run $200–$500, plus publication costs of $100–$300 for the creditor notice. Attorney fees are the biggest variable — traditional hourly counsel on a routine estate often bills $5,000–$15,000, while flat-fee services like Closewell price the same work from $1,400–$4,500 depending on complexity. Bond premiums, appraisals, and tax preparation are additional.
Three things worth flagging. First, evidentiary hearings on heirship and contested estates run in person on Calendars 2, 7, 8, 11, and 25 at the Daley Center — Zoom is for status and motion practice only. Second, each probate judge publishes an individual standing order governing courtesy copies, Zoom IDs, and scheduling — a template workflow has to pull the right judge's email and enforce the 2–5-business-day courtesy-copy window. Third, Cook's Heirship hearing calendar is unusually active — out-of-wedlock children, estranged relatives, and missing-heirs situations often require live testimony even when the rest of the estate is uncontested.
Yes — the Illinois Residential Real Property Transfer on Death Instrument Act (755 ILCS 27/) lets a residential-real-estate owner execute a TODI that names a beneficiary. It's signed, witnessed by two, acknowledged, and — critically — must be recorded with the county recorder before death. An unrecorded TODI is void. A will cannot revoke a recorded TODI; only a later recorded TODI, a recorded revocation with the same formalities, or a new recorded deed does the job.
No. The Illinois exemption is $4,000,000 and has not been indexed to inflation since 2012 — so while the federal exemption tracks upward, Illinois stays put. Illinois also does not recognize portability: the surviving spouse cannot inherit the first-to-die spouse's unused exemption. A credit-shelter trust at the first death, or an Illinois-only QTIP election, is the standard way to preserve the first exemption for the family.
The binding constraint is the creditor-claim bar: 6 months from first publication under 755 ILCS 5/18-3. An independent administration with all heirs consenting, a small asset list, no real-estate sale, and no contested claims can close shortly after the 6-month bar runs — call it 7 to 9 months end to end. Estates with real estate, out-of-state beneficiaries, or any contested claim routinely run 12 to 18 months. Estate-tax estates always extend to at least 12 months (tax return due at 9 months).
No. Any real property titled in the decedent's sole name — at any dollar value — takes the estate out of the Small Estate Affidavit track. The SEA under 755 ILCS 5/25-1 is a personal-property remedy. Jointly-titled real estate and TODI-designated real estate don't count against SEA eligibility, but a single parcel in the decedent's own name forces formal probate.
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