Choice of Venue for Indiana Probate

Video

Good morning, folks. It’s Andy Stautz with Stautz Law, and I am back today with a talk about an Indiana probate topic. This one’s very Indiana-specific, and it’s about venue for a probate estate.  

Now, this probably isn’t something a lot of my clients are necessarily thinking about to begin with. But I think it’s important from a legal perspective and it’s kind of an interesting side note.  

Probate Code Venue Provision: Domicile of Decedent

So the Indiana Probate Code has a venue provision. Venue is just where are we going to do this, right? Where are we going to have our probate estate?  

Indiana Code 29-1-7-1 is a venue provision and it says venue for a probate is the home county of the person who died. So the decedent, that’s the person who died, their domicile. Okay, that makes sense, right?  

Especially because this law is really old. So like back in the 19th century, you know, Farmer Bob dies, like, yeah, you go to the county courthouse where Farmer Bob’s farm is. That’s the best place to probate his estate. So that the venue provision in the probate code says, home county. Easy enough.  

Probate in a Different County?

Sometimes though, it might be convenient for the heirs and beneficiaries or the lawyer or who knows, who knows why. There might be reasons to prefer a different venue than the county of the decedent’s domicile.  

And the nice thing is, there’s a trial rule that lets you do that.  

Indiana Trial Rule 75, “Venue,” says, you know, Part A, 75(A):,venue lies in any of these places. And it gives you a list of kind of like things to consider. And some of those are, you know, the convenience of the people involved, you know, being close to the spot, if that matters.  

And it’s interesting because, okay, now you’ve got two venue statutes. Where do you… which governs? Well, Trial Rule 75(D) says this rule, the permissive venue rule, 75(A), overrides any other venue statute out there. So I think the correct view on this now is you can file a probate estate in any county in Indiana for an Indiana decedent.  

Every Indiana court has jurisdiction, has general jurisdiction over, you know, everybody in the state. So you’ve got jurisdiction [and] you’ve got venue.  

Choosing where to Open Probate Estate

So really probate venue becomes a question of where do you want it to be? And in the vast majority of cases, that is still going to be the decedent’s county of domicile. Um, but, but you know, if, If there’s an outlying county, the decedent lived far away and all of his or her surviving family members are in a different county. Maybe you file where the survivors are… or, you know, any number of other reasons. You’ve got that flexibility now.  

So that’s kind of an overview of what the rule is, what you’re allowed to do. And it’s going to ultimately be a case-by-case determination. So, if you’re my client, I’m going to talk to you about, okay, what county should this be in? It’s definitely something to talk to counsel about because different courts in the state are different. And if you’re going to be going there for petitions, for hearings, you know, you want it to be the best place.  

So it’s one more thing to think about as you’re considering how your state administration is going to go. I hope that information has been useful.  

I help with probate estates throughout Indiana, though predominantly here in central Indiana, Marion County, Johnson County, Shelby County, Montgomery County, you know, just kind of this area and familiar with all of those courts and If you’ve got a case in one of them or you think you might need one, my contact information is here. So give me a call and we can talk about your specific case. Hope the general information has been useful and that’s all for today. Bye now.