More than Known Creditors
August 5, 2019 § Leave a comment
MCA 93-7-145 is the statute that requires publication of notice to creditors in an estate matter. A prerequisite to publication is the filing of an affidavit by the fiduciary.
Most lawyers with whom I come into contact call that affidavit “The Affidavit of Known Creditors.”
But that is a misnomer, and a dangerously misleading one at that, because it is not at all an affidavit stating only the creditors who are known; the statute requires that the fiduciary must make “reasonably diligent efforts to identify persons having claims against the estate,” and make affidavit of those efforts.
In Estate of Petrick, 635 So. 2d 1389, (Miss. 1994), the Mississippi Supreme Court stated:
“From a reading of this statute it is clear that an administratrix has four responsibilities: (1) she must make reasonably diligent efforts to ascertain creditors having claims against the estate and mail them notice of the 90 day period within which to file a claim; (2) she must file an affidavit stating that she has complied with the first subsection; (3) she must publish in some newspaper in the county a notice to creditors explaining that they have 90 days within which to file claims against the estate; and (4) she must file proof of publication with the clerk of court.”
In Petrick the court affirmed a chancellor’s ruling allowing the untimely $6,220 claim of a medical firm whose status as a claimant should have been reasonably known to the fiduciary, but the fiduciary did not include the firm in her affidavit and did not send it notice.
Another flaw in the fiduciary’s actions was that she published notice to creditors first, and filed her affidavit a month after beginning publication. The court in Petrick stated that publication may be done only after the affidavit is filed.
A previous post on point is at this link.
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