How long does probate take in DC?
The honest answer is that the paperwork is not what takes the time. A DC estate runs on a stack of statutory clocks, and once you can see them, you can see both the fastest possible case and where the months really go.
The short answer, and the math behind it
A clean, uncontested, unsupervised DC estate cannot responsibly close much sooner than about eight to nine months after the personal representative is appointed, and a year to eighteen months is entirely normal. That floor is not a rule of thumb. It is the sum of three statutory clocks:
- Up to 20 days to publish. Within 20 days after appointment the personal representative must publish notice of the appointment once a week for 2 successive weeks (D.C. Code § 20–704(a)).
- Six months for creditors. Claims are barred unless presented within 6 months after the date of the first publication of that notice (§ 20–903(a)). The same notice gives objectors to the appointment or the will the same six months.
- Sixty days for the family to object to the account. An unsupervised estate closes with a Certificate of Completion, which may not be filed before the time for creditors' claims has expired, and which must state that every interested person was sent an account and told of their right to object within 60 days (§ 20–735(a), (b)(2)).
Twenty days, plus six months, plus sixty days is roughly eight and a half months from appointment in the best case — and that assumes the account goes out the week the claims window closes. Add the time before appointment (finding the will, agreeing who serves, filing the petition) and the time after the account for distributing and filing, and you arrive at the figure most families hear: rarely under about nine months, often a year or more.
Every statutory clock in a DC estate
These are the deadlines written into Title 20 (and, for estate tax, Title 47). Most estates only ever meet the first six rows.
| What | Deadline | Authority |
|---|---|---|
| Publish notice of appointment (once a week, 2 successive weeks) | Within 20 days after appointment | § 20–704(a) |
| Mail notice to heirs, legatees and known or reasonably ascertainable creditors (registered or certified mail) | Not later than 20 days after appointment | § 20–704(b) |
| Certify to the Register that the mailed notices went out | Within 90 days after appointment | § 20–704(b-2) |
| Verified inventory, including real property at date-of-death fair market value and its encumbrances | Within 3 months of appointment | § 20–711(a) |
| Creditor claims; objections to the appointment or the will | 6 months after first publication | § 20–903(a); § 20–704(a) notice form |
| Personal representative may rescind an allowed claim | Only within that same 6 months | § 20–908(a) |
| Creditor whose claim is disallowed must sue | Within 60 days after the disallowance notice is mailed, or the claim is forever barred to that extent | § 20–908(a) |
| Interested persons object to an unsupervised account | Within 60 days after the account is sent | § 20–735(b)(2), (d) |
| Supervised estates: first account | Within 1 year and 1 day of first publication, then every 9 months until the final account | § 20–724(a) |
| DC estate tax return, if one is required | Within 10 months after the death | § 47–3705(a) |
| Unsupervised appointment ends automatically if no Certificate of Completion is filed | 3 years after appointment, extended 12 months at a time on written request | § 20–1301(c) |
A note on the notice rules: § 20–704 is currently amended by temporary 2026 legislation (publication in "a legal periodical or newspaper of general circulation") that is set to expire on March 27, 2027. The 20-day and two-successive-week requirements are the same either way, but confirm the current publication options with the Register of Wills before you place the notice. Our guide to opening probate in DC covers the petition and appointment stage in detail.
A realistic sequence
| Stage | Typical elapsed time | What drives it |
|---|---|---|
| Death to filing the petition | A few weeks to a few months | Almost always the family, not the court — locating the will, agreeing who serves, gathering consents |
| Filing to appointment / Letters issued | Weeks, if the filing is clean and bond is waived | Completeness of the petition, bond, and whether anyone objects |
| Notice published and mailed | Within 20 days of appointment | § 20–704 |
| Inventory | Within 3 months of appointment | § 20–711 — this is where the house needs a date-of-death value |
| Creditor claim window | 6 months from first publication | § 20–903 |
| Sale of the property | Can run in parallel — often months 3 to 9 | Condition of the house, occupancy, and family agreement |
| Account, 60-day objection period, distribution, closing | Two to several months after the window closes | § 20–735 (unsupervised) or §§ 20–724 and 20–1301(a) (supervised) |
These are patterns, not promises. Your case can move faster or slower for reasons that have nothing to do with anyone's diligence.
Why supervised estates take longer
Whether the estate is supervised or unsupervised is the single biggest structural driver of the timeline. (The difference is explained in supervised vs unsupervised administration in DC.) In a supervised estate the Court reviews the paperwork as you go, and the schedule is set by statute:
- Accounts on a fixed calendar. The first account is due within 1 year and 1 day of first publication, then within 9 months of each account after that until the final account (§ 20–724(a)). Extensions are available on written application for good cause (§ 20–724(b)).
- A 15-day lead time on every filing. Each account must be filed with a certificate that a copy was mailed or delivered to all interested persons within the previous 15 days, with notice of the date it will be filed (§ 20–721).
- Closing only on approval. Approval of the final account automatically closes a supervised estate (§ 20–1301(a)). If the appointment is not terminated in that final account, the representative petitions separately, and anyone notified has 20 days to ask for a hearing.
Families can take some of the friction out. If every heir or legatee signs a written waiver filed with the Register, a supervised representative is excused from filing the inventories and accounts with the Court (§ 20–731(a)) — though any signer may still demand them within 7 days of the final account being sent (§ 20–731(b)). A separate written waiver excuses a formal Court audit, replacing it with a cursory review (§ 20–732(a)–(b)); any signer can still demand the formal audit within 20 days of approval of the final account (§ 20–732(c)). Neither waiver excuses the representative from sending inventories and accounts to the interested persons themselves (§ 20–733).
How an unsupervised estate actually closes
Most DC estates are unsupervised, and they do not end with a hearing. They end with a verified Certificate of Completion filed by the personal representative (§ 20–735(a)). It can be filed at any time after the creditor window has expired, and it must state that:
- the time for presenting creditors' claims has expired;
- every interested person was sent a copy of an account and notice of the right to object within 60 days;
- each interested person either consented in writing or did not object in writing within those 60 days;
- distribution has been made in accordance with the account;
- all known, unbarred creditor claims are satisfied or settled — or, if one is still open, what arrangement has been made for it; and
- all administration expenses have been paid and the estate is otherwise fully administered (§ 20–735(b)).
It also lists every recipient of the account with a certificate of service (§ 20–735(c)). The payoff for doing this properly is § 20–736: absent fraud, neither the personal representative nor any distributee is liable to an interested person who received the final account and did not object within the 60 days.
The practical consequence for a house: item 4 means the estate cannot close while the house is still unsold and undistributed. Either it is sold and the proceeds are distributed under the account, or it is distributed in kind to the heirs (see when an heir or the PR wants to keep the house). A house that sits is an estate that stays open.
What actually causes delay
- Waiting to open the estate. Very common, entirely human, and the biggest single source of delay we see — because the six-month clock does not start until notice is published.
- Heirs who cannot be located. Mailed notice must go to heirs and legatees within 20 days, and the published notice asks any relative who did not receive mail within 25 days to contact the Register (§ 20–704). Tracking down a sibling nobody has spoken to since 1994 is genuinely slow.
- Disagreement. Two heirs who want to sell and one who wants to keep it will add months, sometimes years. See when heirs disagree about selling.
- A disputed creditor claim. A disallowed claimant has 60 days to sue (§ 20–908(a)), and the estate cannot fully close around an open claim without making arrangements for it (§ 20–735(b)(5)).
- Bond. If heirs won't waive it and the will doesn't excuse it, obtaining bond takes time and costs money.
- The house itself. A vacant property that needs work, one with a tenant, or one with an unclear title history takes far longer to sell than the estate takes to administer — see an inherited house with a tenant and a house from an earlier death that was never probated.
- Unpaid taxes or liens that nobody knew about until title work surfaced them. Recorded liens are not cut off by the six-month bar (§ 20–903(b)), so they have to be paid or resolved at closing.
- An estate large enough for DC estate tax. The return and payment are due 10 months after death (§ 47–3705), which can set the pace on its own — see inherited property taxes in DC.
What the delay costs while you wait
An empty DC row house is not free to hold. Insurance on a vacant property is more expensive and sometimes harder to get; utilities have to stay on enough to prevent freezing; the yard has to be maintained or the District will notice; and a house that is visibly empty attracts problems. A vacant house also has its own registration and tax-class rules, which we cover in the vacant estate house in DC.
Can you sell before probate finishes?
In most cases, yes — once the personal representative has been appointed and has Letters of Administration. The sale does not wait for the estate to close, and it does not wait for the six-month claims window either. Here's what selling with Letters involves.
Two points make a mid-administration sale workable for a buyer. The personal representative's statutory powers include selling estate property (§ 20–741, subject to the will and to restrictions on a supervised representative's powers endorsed on the Letters). And under § 20–744, a person who in good faith deals with a personal representative for value is protected as if the representative properly exercised the power — a buyer is not bound to see how the proceeds are applied. That is why a title company will insure an estate sale months before the estate closes.
What selling early changes is the holding cost, not the legal floor. The proceeds go into the estate account, creditors still have their six months, and distribution still follows the account. What it removes is the part of the timeline families find hardest: carrying, insuring and worrying about an empty house for a year.
One caution: if someone files a motion over which estate assets should be sold first, § 20–703 can pause a sale until notice and a hearing. And an heir or the personal representative buying the house themselves is a separate analysis — see the insider-sale rules.
What can still come back after the estate closes
Closing is not quite the end of exposure, and it is worth knowing the tail before you distribute sale proceeds.
- Unbarred claims can follow the money. After closing, a claim that was not barred may be brought against the people who received distributions — but no heir or legatee is liable beyond the value of what they received, measured at distribution or at the time of suit, whichever is lower, and they share the cost among themselves (§ 20–1302).
- One year for claims against the personal representative. Except for fraud, claims of personal liability against the representative are barred one year from distribution of all assets and satisfaction of all known claims. In an unsupervised estate that date is presumed to be the filing of the Certificate of Completion or, if none was filed, 3 months after the appointment ended (§ 20–1303(a)).
- One year to recover improper distributions, again measured from full distribution and satisfaction of known claims, except where the distributee took part in a fraudulent distribution (§ 20–1303(b)).
- Loose ends are allowed. Closing the estate or ending the appointment does not stop the representative from performing whatever final administrative acts are needed (§ 20–1301(d)).
Where we fit
We are a District real estate brokerage, not a law firm, and nothing here is legal advice. Deadlines in your particular estate are a question for the Register of Wills or your attorney.
What we do is take the house off the critical path. We can give you a written date-of-death opinion of value in time for the three-month inventory, tell you honestly what the house needs before it can sell, and plan a sale that closes inside the creditor window instead of after it — at no cost for the consultation and whether or not the property ever lists with us.
Related reading: selling a house in DC probate, the DC probate process step by step, and a personal representative's duties when the estate owns a house.
Sources: D.C. Code Title 20; the Probate Division of the D.C. Superior Court and the Office of the Register of Wills (dccourts.gov); and D.C. Law 25-302, the Strengthening Probate Administration Amendment Act of 2024. Rules change and individual cases vary — confirm anything that affects a decision with the Register of Wills or your own attorney.