Title 30.1, Uniform Probate Code

This title shall be known and may be cited as the Uniform Probate Code.

1. This title shall be liberally construed and applied to promote its underlying purposes and policies. 2. The underlying purposes and policies of this title are: a. To simplify and clarify the law concerning the affairs of decedents, missing persons, protected persons, minors, a…

Whenever fraud has been perpetrated in connection with any proceeding or in any statement filed under this title, or if fraud is used to avoid or circumvent the provisions or purposes of this title, any person injured thereby may obtain appropriate relief against the perpetrator …

In addition to the rules of evidence in courts of general jurisdiction, the following rules relating to a determination of death and status apply: 1. Death occurs when an individual is determined to be dead under chapter 23-06.3. 2. A certified or authenticated copy of a death ce…

For the purpose of granting consent or approval with regard to the acts or accounts of a personal representative or trustee, including relief from liability or penalty for failure to post bond, to register a trust, or to perform other duties, and for purposes of consenting to mod…

Subject to additional definitions contained in the subsequent chapters which are applicable to specific chapters, and unless the context otherwise requires, in this title: 1. "Agent" includes an attorney-in-fact under a durable or nondurable power of attorney, an individual autho…

Except as otherwise provided in this title, this title applies to: 1. The affairs and estates of decedents, missing persons, and persons to be protected, domiciled in this state. 2. The property of nonresidents located in this state or property coming into the control of a fiduci…

The district court has jurisdiction over all subject matter relating to guardianship, probate, and testamentary matters, including: 1. Estates of decedents, including construction of wills and determination of heirs and successors of decedents. 2. Estates of protected persons. 3.…

1. Where a proceeding under this title could be maintained in more than one place in this state, the court in which the proceeding is first commenced has the exclusive right to proceed. 2. If proceedings concerning the same estate, protected person, ward, or trust are commenced i…

Unless specifically provided to the contrary in this title or unless inconsistent with its provisions, the Rules of Civil Procedure, including the rules concerning vacation of orders and appellate review, govern formal proceedings under this title.

The court or clerk of court shall keep a record for each decedent, ward, protected person, or trust involved in any document which may be filed with the court under this title, including petitions and applications, demands for notices or bonds, and of any orders or responses rela…

The acts and orders which this title specifies as performable by the district court may be performed either by a judge of the appropriate court or by a person, including the clerk, designated by the appropriate court by a written order filed and recorded in the office of the cour…

Appellate review, including the right to appellate review, interlocutory appeal, provisions as to time, manner, notice, appeal bond, stays, scope of review, record on appeal, briefs, arguments, and power of the appellate court, is governed by the rules applicable to the appeals t…

Except as otherwise specifically provided in this title or by rule, every document filed with the district court under this title, including applications, petitions, and demands for notice, is deemed to include an oath, affirmation, or statement to the effect that its representat…

1. If notice of a hearing on any petition is required and, except for specific notice requirements as otherwise provided, the petitioner shall cause notice of the time and place of hearing of any petition to be given to any interested person or the interested person's attorney if…

A person, including a guardian ad litem, conservator, or other fiduciary, may waive notice by a writing signed by the person or the person's attorney and filed in the proceeding. A ward or protected person, for whom a guardianship, conservatorship, or other protective order is so…

In formal proceedings involving trusts or estates of decedents, minors, protected persons, or incapacitated persons, and in judicially supervised settlements, the following apply: 1. Interests to be affected must be described in pleadings that give reasonable information to owner…

1. Any part of a decedent's estate not effectively disposed of by will passes by intestate succession to the decedent's heirs as prescribed in this title, except as modified by the decedent's will. 2. A decedent, by will, may expressly exclude or limit the right of an individual …

The intestate share of a decedent's surviving spouse is: 1. The entire intestate estate if: a. No descendant or parent of the decedent survives the decedent; or b. All of the decedent's surviving descendants are also descendants of the surviving spouse and there is no other desce…

Any part of the intestate estate not passing to a decedent's surviving spouse under section 30.1-04-02, or the entire intestate estate if there is no surviving spouse, passes in the following order to the individuals who survive the decedent: 1. To the decedent's descendants by r…

An individual who is related to the decedent through two lines of relationship is entitled to only a single share based on the relationship that would entitle the individual to the larger share.

1. For purposes of intestate succession, homestead allowance, and exempt property, and except as otherwise provided in subsection 2: a. An individual who was born before a decedent's death but who fails to survive the decedent by one hundred twenty hours is deemed to have predece…

If there is no taker under the provisions of this title, the intestate estate passes to the state for the support of the common schools and an action for the recovery of such property and to reduce it into the possession of the state or for its sale and conveyance may be brought …

Relatives of the half blood inherit the same share they would inherit if they were of the whole blood.

1. A parent is barred from inheriting from or through a child of the parent if the parent's parental rights were terminated and the parent-child relationship was not judicially re-established or the child died before reaching eighteen years of age and there is clear and convincin…

1. If an individual dies intestate as to all or a portion of the individual's estate, property the decedent gave during the decedent's lifetime to an individual who, at the decedent's death, is an heir is treated as an advancement against the heir's intestate share only if the de…

A debt owed to a decedent is not charged against the intestate share of any individual except the debtor. If the debtor fails to survive the decedent, the debt is not taken into account in computing the intestate share of the debtor's descendants.

No individual is disqualified to take as an heir because the individual or an individual through whom that individual claims is or has been an alien.

The estates of dower and curtesy are abolished.

In sections 30.1-04-14 through 30.1-04-20: 1. "Adoptee" means an individual who is adopted. 2. "Assisted reproduction" means a method of causing pregnancy other than sexual intercourse. 3. "Divorce" means any divorce or annulment, or any dissolution or declaration of invalidity o…

Except as otherwise provided in subsections 2 through 4 of section 30.1-04-18, if a parent-child relationship exists or is established under sections 30.1-04-14 through 30.1-04-20, the parent is a parent of the child and the child is a child of the parent for purposes of intestat…

Except as otherwise provided in section 30.1-04-09, 30.1-04-18, 30.1-04-19, or 30.1-04-20, a parent-child relationship exists between a child and the child's genetic parents, regardless of their marital status.

1. A parent-child relationship exists between an adoptee and the adoptee's adoptive parent or parents. 2. For purposes of subsection 1: a. An individual who is in the process of being adopted by a married couple when one of the spouses dies is treated as adopted by the deceased s…

1. Except as otherwise provided in subsections 2 through 4, a parent-child relationship does not exist between an adoptee and the adoptee's genetic parents. 2. A parent-child relationship exists between an individual who is adopted by the spouse of either genetic parent and: a. T…

1. In this section: a. "Birth mother" means a woman, other than a gestational carrier under section 30.1-04-20, who gives birth to a child of assisted reproduction. The term is not limited to a woman who is the child's genetic mother. b. "Child of assisted reproduction" means a c…

1. In this section: a. "Gestational agreement" means an enforceable or unenforceable agreement for assisted reproduction in which a woman agrees to carry a child to birth for an intended parent, intended parents, or an individual described in subsection 5. b. "Gestational carrier…

Sections 30.1-04-14 through 30.1-04-20 do not preclude, limit, or affect application of the doctrine of equitable adoption.

1. The surviving spouse of a decedent who dies domiciled in this state has a right of election, under the limitations and conditions stated in this chapter, to take an elective share amount equal to fifty percent of the augmented estate. 2. If the sum of the amounts described in …

1. a. In this section: (1) "Decedent's nonprobate transfers to others" means the decedent's nonprobate transfers to persons, other than the decedent's spouse, surviving spouse, the decedent, or the decedent's creditors, estate, or estate creditors, that are included in the augmen…

1. In a proceeding for an elective share, the following are applied first to satisfy the elective-share amount and to reduce or eliminate any contributions due from the decedent's probate estate and recipients of the decedent's nonprobate transfers to others: a. Amounts included …

1. Only original recipients of the decedent's nonprobate transfers to others, and the donees of the recipients of the decedent's nonprobate transfers to others, to the extent the donees have the property or its proceeds, are liable to make a proportional contribution toward satis…

1. Except as provided in subsection 2, the election must be made by filing in the court and mailing or delivering to the personal representative, if any, a petition for the elective share within nine months after the date of the decedent's death, or within six months after the pr…

1. The right of election may be exercised only by a surviving spouse who is living when the petition for the elective share is filed in the court under subsection 1 of section 30.1-05-05. If the election is not exercised by the surviving spouse personally, it may be exercised on …

1. Although under section 30.1-05-02 a payment, item of property, or other benefit is included in the decedent's nonprobate transfers to others, a payer or other third party is not liable for having made a payment or transferred an item of property or other benefit to a beneficia…

1. If the testator's surviving spouse married the testator after the testator executed a will, the surviving spouse is entitled to receive, as an intestate share, no less than the value of the share of the estate the surviving spouse would have received if the testator had died i…

1. Except as provided in subsection 2, if a testator fails to provide in the will for any of the testator's children born or adopted after the execution of the will, the omitted afterborn or after-adopted child receives a share in the estate as follows: a. If the testator had no …

This chapter applies to the estate of a decedent who dies domiciled in this state. The rights to homestead allowance, exempt property, and family allowance for a decedent who dies not domiciled in this state are governed by the law of the decedent's domicile at death.

In addition to the homestead defined in section 47-18-01, the decedent's surviving spouse is entitled from the estate to a value, not exceeding fifteen thousand dollars in excess of any security interests therein, in household furniture, automobiles, furnishings, appliances, and …

1. In addition to the right to homestead allowance and exempt property, the decedent's surviving spouse and minor children whom the decedent was obligated to support and children who were in fact being supported by the decedent are entitled to a reasonable allowance in money out …

1. If the estate is otherwise sufficient, property specifically devised may not be used to satisfy rights to exempt property. Subject to this restriction, the surviving spouse, guardians of minor children, or children who are adults may select property of the estate as exempt pro…