Illinois Small Estate Affidavit: the $150,000 Limit, the Form in 755 ILCS 5/25-1 and the Affiant's Duties

By Rozsa Gyene, California estate planning attorney, State Bar of California #208356. Published October 4, 2026. Last reviewed October 4, 2026.

This guide covers what qualifies for the Illinois small estate affidavit, what the affidavit must say, who may sign and what they take on, how debts and the family awards are handled, how vehicle titles are transferred, and what to do about real estate. Every rule is cited to the section of the Probate Act of 1975 or the Vehicle Code read on the General Assembly's site on October 4, 2026, and the two 2025 and 2026 public acts that amend section 25-1 were read the same day. It explains the statute and is not advice about any particular family's estate.

What counts toward the $150,000

Section 25-1 says the affidavit may be used to transfer personal property in a decedent's estate if two things are true: no letters of office are outstanding on the estate and no petition for letters is contemplated or pending in Illinois or anywhere else; and the decedent's personal estate passing to any party by intestacy or under a will is limited to tangible and intangible personal property not exceeding $150,000, excluding motor vehicles registered with the Secretary of State, plus those registered motor vehicles (section 25-1(a-5)). The form asks the affiant to list each asset, for example cash or stock, with its fair market value, and separately to describe each registered motor vehicle by make, body type, year and vehicle identification number (paragraph 6 of the form). The test is the property passing by will or intestacy: the section counts the personal estate "passing to any party either by intestacy or under a will," so property that passes some other way is not what the form measures.

The figure depends on the date of death. Public Act 104-0346 struck $100,000 from the form and inserted $150,000, took effect on August 15, 2025, and the section's subsection (j) applies the change to a decedent whose date of death is on or after that effective date. For a death before that date the earlier $100,000 figure governs. The Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County publishes the form in both versions: CCP 0248 for a decedent who died on or after August 15, 2025, which states $150,000, and CCP 0247 for a decedent who died on or after September 4, 1991 but before August 15, 2025, which states $100,000.

Motor vehicles, and the change on January 1, 2027

Today a motor vehicle registered with the Secretary of State is listed on the affidavit but is not counted toward the $150,000. Public Act 104-0624, effective January 1, 2027, adds a sentence to section 25-1 providing that the following are not treated as excluded motor vehicles when valuing the personal estate, so they will count toward the limit: motor vehicles used as living quarters; motor homes, mini motor homes and van campers; a non-self-propelled vehicle as defined in the Vehicle Code; a commercial vehicle; an implement of husbandry; and a bus or commuter van. The General Assembly's page shows both texts of the section side by side, labeled before and after amendment by Public Act 104-624, and the change applies to a decedent whose date of death is on or after the act's effective date (section 25-1(j)).

When the affidavit is used solely for a title transaction with the Secretary of State to transfer the decedent's vehicles, section 25-1 says it may be used for that purpose under section 3-114(b) of the Vehicle Code without consideration of the value of the decedent's personal estate. Section 3-114(b) of the Vehicle Code (625 ILCS 5) provides that when a vehicle passes under the small estates provisions of the Probate Act, the transferee must mail or deliver to the Secretary of State, within 120 days, the last certificate of title if available, the documentation the Probate Act requires and an application for certificate of title, and that the Small Estate Affidavit form shall be furnished by the Secretary of State; the transfer may be to the transferee or the transferee's nominee. The same section lets a surviving joint tenant apply within 120 days with proof of the death, and a surviving spouse who acquires the vehicle apply within 180 days with proof of the death, the transfer and the marriage (section 3-114(d) and (d-5)). The Secretary of State's Corrected Title, Deceased page lists what to submit when "a decedent's estate is not being probated" and the small estate affidavit procedure applies: "A Small Estate Affidavit describing the vehicle year, make and vehicle identification number" (the affiant "does not have to be an heir or legatee", and "If there is a will, a certified copy must be submitted"), "The decedent's title, which does not need to be assigned", "A copy of the death certificate or abstract", a completed Application for Vehicle Transaction(s) (VSD 190) with the odometer reading, "The $165 title fee and any applicable registration fees", and proof of compliance with the vehicle use tax (RUT-50). That page still describes the procedure as available when "the value of the personal estate does not exceed $100,000"; the statute's limit is $150,000 for deaths on or after August 15, 2025, as explained above, and the Vehicle Code's 120 day rule is what section 3-114 states.

Real estate is not covered

Section 25-1 is addressed to a person, corporation or financial institution that is indebted to or holding personal estate of a decedent, controls access to the decedent's safe deposit box, or acts as registrar or transfer agent of stock or another evidence of interest, and subsection (a-5) limits the affidavit to personal property in a decedent's estate. We read the whole section and found no provision for transferring real estate. A house or lot titled in the decedent's name alone therefore passes through the probate process, where section 9-8 allows summary administration without letters of office when the gross real and personal estate does not exceed $100,000 and all heirs and legatees consent, or outside probate through a transfer on death instrument recorded during life (see the transfer on death instrument guide) or a living trust that already holds title.

Who signs, and what the affidavit must say

Section 25-1 does not list who may act as affiant. The form asks the affiant to state his or her relationship to the decedent or the decedent's estate (paragraph 10.3), and the affiant may be a distributee: distributions under the affidavit may be made to the affiant if paragraph 11 so specifies (section 25-1(e)). An affiant who lives outside Illinois submits to the jurisdiction of the Illinois courts for all matters related to the affidavit and must name an agent for service of process in Illinois; if none is named or the agent cannot be served, the clerk of the circuit court of the county where the decedent lived is the agent (paragraph 1(c) and section 25-1(f)).

The affidavit must be in substantially the form printed in subsection (b). In it the affiant states on oath: the affiant's post office and residence addresses (paragraph 1); the decedent's name (2); the date of death, with a copy of the death certificate attached (3); the decedent's place of residence immediately before death (4); that no letters of office are outstanding and no petition for letters is contemplated or pending anywhere, to the affiant's knowledge (5); the asset list and vehicle list described above (6); either that all funeral expenses and other debts have been paid, or a list of every known unpaid debt by name, address, amount and class (7); that the affiant understands that all valid claims must be paid from the estate before any distribution to an heir or legatee, in the order of the classes, pro rata within a class if the estate is insufficient (7.5); that there is no known unpaid claimant or contested claim except as stated (8); the names and residences of any surviving spouse, minor children and adult dependent children, and the award allowable to them (9); either that the decedent left no will, with the heirs, their relationships, residences and intestate shares, or that the decedent left a will that has been filed with the clerk of an appropriate court, with a certified copy attached, the affiant's belief that it is the valid last will signed by the decedent and the attesting witnesses as the law requires and would be admittable to probate, and the legatees and their shares (10(a) or 10(b)); that the affiant is unaware of any dispute or potential conflict as to the heirship or the will (10(c)); the affiant's relationship to the decedent or the estate (10.3); the indemnity paragraph, which the statute says should appear in bold type of not less than 14 points (10.5); and how the remaining property should be distributed after the listed debts are paid (11). The statement is made under the penalties of perjury and signed and sworn before a notary public, and the form notes that a fraudulent statement is perjury under section 32-2 of the Criminal Code of 2012.

Paragraph 10(b) presupposes that the will is already on file, and that is required anyway: under section 6-1 any person who has the testator's will in his possession must file it with the clerk of the court of the proper county immediately upon the death, whether or not an estate will be opened. The Cook County clerk's Probate Division page says there is no fee for filing a will, that the office needs a copy of the death certificate because a will cannot be filed without a date of death, and that certified copies cost $2.00 for the first page, $.50 for each page after up to 25 pages, $.25 per page beyond that and $2.00 per certification.

Debts come first

The affidavit does not wipe out the decedent's debts. Paragraph 7 lists every known unpaid debt in the seven classes of section 18-10: first, funeral and burial expenses, expenses of administration and statutory custodial claims; second, the surviving spouse's or child's award; third, debts due the United States; fourth, wages of up to $800 per employee for services within 4 months before death and expenses attending the last illness; fifth, money and property the decedent held in trust that cannot be identified or traced; sixth, debts due the State of Illinois and its counties, townships, cities, towns, villages and school districts; and seventh, all other claims. The affiant, acting on behalf of the estate, is obligated to pay all valid claims before any distribution is made to any heir or legatee (section 25-1(e)), in the order of the classes, pro rata within a class when the estate is insufficient (paragraph 7.5, matching section 18-13). Distributions may be made even where unpaid debts are disclosed, including to the affiant (section 25-1(e)), but only after those debts are paid. The general claims bar of section 18-12 runs from the death: all claims that could have been barred are barred 2 years after the decedent's death whether or not letters of office are ever issued (section 18-12(b)).

The spouse's and child's awards in a small estate

The awards of Article XV sit in class 2, ahead of every ordinary creditor, and the form builds them in. Paragraph 9(b) states the award allowable to the surviving spouse of an Illinois resident as $20,000 plus $10,000 multiplied by the number of minor children and adult dependent children who resided with the surviving spouse at the time of the decedent's death; paragraph 9(c) states that if there is no surviving spouse the award allowable to the minor children and adult dependent children is $20,000 plus $10,000 multiplied by their number, divided among them in equal shares. The form's figure for adult dependent children differs from section 15-1(a-5), which sets at least $5,000 for each dependent adult child who lived with the spouse, and the court sets the actual award. The form's note defines an adult dependent child as one who is unable to maintain himself and is likely to become a public charge, the same words as the Act's definition of "dependent" (section 1-2.06). These figures are the minimum awards of sections 15-1 and 15-2: the spouse's award for 9 months' support may in no case be less than $20,000, with not less than $10,000 for each such child, and when there is no spouse the minor children's award is not less than $10,000 each plus $20,000 divided among them (sections 15-1(a) and 15-2(b)). Sections 15-1(a-5) and 15-2(b-5) expressly contemplate the small estate affidavit: an award for a financially dependent adult child may be agreed upon by the surviving spouse and the affiant under a small estate affidavit pursuant to section 25-1, must be at least $5,000, and is barred unless the spouse or child gives the affiant written notice asserting the dependency within 30 days after receiving the affiant's written notice of the potential award. The spouse is entitled to the award unless the will expressly provides that its gifts to the spouse are in lieu of the award and the spouse does not renounce the will (section 15-1(b)); the spouse's rights guide covers the award and the renunciation in full.

The affiant's duties and liability

The person who signs takes on real obligations. By paragraph 10.5 the affiant agrees to indemnify and hold harmless all creditors of the estate, the heirs and legatees, and every person, corporation or financial institution relying on the affidavit who incurs any loss because of that reliance, up to the amount lost because of any act or omission by the affiant, and acknowledges that anyone recovering under the indemnity is entitled to reasonable attorney's fees and the expenses of recovery; subsection (e) imposes the same indemnity by statute. Each person who receives a payment, delivery or transfer under the affidavit is answerable to any person having a prior right and is accountable to any representative of the estate later appointed (section 25-1(d)). The affidavit is sworn under the penalties of perjury. If safe deposit access is involved or a sale of personal property would help the distribution, the affiant may in writing appoint one or more agents, or the affiant himself or herself, with power to gain access to, sell and distribute the property without court approval in the manner paragraphs 7.5 and 11 specify (section 25-1(c)).

What the bank or holder must do

When furnished with an affidavit in substantially the statutory form, the person, corporation or financial institution indebted to or holding the decedent's personal estate, controlling access to the safe deposit box, or acting as registrar or transfer agent must pay the debt, grant access, deliver the property, or transfer or issue the stock or other evidence of interest to the persons and in the manner the affidavit specifies or to the affiant's agent (section 25-1(a)). A holder that acts in good faith reliance on a copy of a document purporting to be a small estate affidavit substantially in compliance with subsection (b) is fully protected and released to the same extent as if it had paid the estate's representative, and is not required to see to the application or disposition of the property (section 25-1(d)).

Where to get the form

The form is the text of section 25-1(b) itself, so any affidavit that follows it substantially will do. The Illinois Courts' page of approved statewide standardized forms, which all Illinois courts must accept, lists circuit court forms for matters such as guardianship of a minor, name change, eviction and small claims, but no small estate affidavit or decedent's estate form, which fits a procedure that is never filed in court. The Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County publishes two versions of the affidavit on its forms site, CCP 0248 for deaths on or after August 15, 2025 and CCP 0247 for earlier deaths; the Cook County version names the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County as the default agent for service on an out-of-state affiant and tells the affiant to attach a list of each asset and of each vehicle.

What a living trust changes

Property the owner transferred into a revocable living trust during life is held by the trustee under the trust's terms, and the settlor may revoke or amend the trust by the method the instrument provides or by a later signed writing referring to the trust (760 ILCS 3/602). That property is not the decedent's personal estate passing by will or intestacy, so it is neither counted toward the $150,000 nor collected by affidavit; the successor trustee handles it. A house deeded to the trust during life does not need probate either, which matters because real estate is exactly what the affidavit cannot move. See the Illinois living trust page for what the package includes and how it is signed.