Keep paying what protects estate property — mortgage, utilities, insurance — from the estate account, never your own. If it looks like the estate may not cover everything it owes, stop and get advice before paying anyone: most states set a legal order of payment, and paying out of order can land on you.
Protects estate value; order of payment matters if funds are tight.
How: Estate account only. If the estate may be insolvent, pause and get advice.
Applies in 50 of the 51 jurisdictions Settle covers.
1 jurisdictions handle this their own way:
Protects estate value; Florida sets an order of payment for claims if funds are tight.
Settle builds this checklist into a plan you can actually work
The steps above, ordered for your situation in your state, with the deadlines on a calendar, your documents attached to the step that needs them, and an expense ledger for everything the estate owes you back. The plan itself is free.
This step is estate administration procedure, not a statutory deadline, so Settle's rule tables carry no statute citation for it and none is invented here. The answer above is the guidance the app itself gives, identical in every jurisdiction it covers.
The steps that are backed by statute — filing windows, creditor periods, inventory deadlines — carry their citation and last-checked date on the state guide and in Where the state information comes from. If something here does not match what the court or your attorney told you, please write to [email protected].
This is one step out of roughly two dozen. The full sequence for your state — with the statutory deadlines, the citations behind them and the date each was last checked — is in the state executor guides.