Chapter 16 - § 16.1 • GENERAL

• Jurisdiction: Colorado

§ 16.1 • GENERAL

§ 16.1.1—Scope, Summary, And Highlights

The Code balances the rights of creditors against the interests of the decedent's successors. Favoring the successors are the short nonclaim statute, the one-year self-executing statute of limitations, and the liberality in placing the family allowances ahead of the claims of general creditors. Favoring creditors are the relative informality of perfecting claims (by filing with the court or delivery to the personal representative without any prescribed format) and the presumption of allowance of claims not affirmatively disallowed by the representative. The Code provides for a rather speedy process dealing with claims so that most pre-death claims will be paid or otherwise resolved within one year from death. It is also important to note that certain obligations of the decedent fall outside the provisions of the nonclaim statute, especially disputes with third parties as to the underlying ownership of assets in the name of or possession of the decedent and enforcement actions that will not deplete the assets of the estate, e.g., actions to collect insurance from the decedent's carriers and actions to foreclose on security when no deficiency is claimed against the general assets of the estate.

Chapter 15, "Actions By and Against Representatives," dealt with actions by and against personal representatives and the concurrent jurisdiction of probate and other courts relative to debts and other liabilities of decedents and estates. It was pointed out that since 1965, district courts sitting in probate and the probate court of the City and County of Denver have been dealing with many matters that also could be dealt with by district courts in exercising their civil jurisdiction. This chapter will deal with those cases in which the jurisdiction of the district court sitting in probate or the probate court of the City and County of Denver, by the filing of a claim with the court, becomes exclusive. As detailed in the chapter on Actions, the disadvantages of commencing an action under the civil jurisdiction of the district court are such that under present statutes, unless a suit is pending in the district court at death, the procedure of filing a claim in the court of probate (or delivering the claim to the personal representative) will normally be adopted by the claimant as the most efficient way of processing and at least part of the appropriate remedy (see § 16.2.3 for a discussion of the contingent claim as part of the total remedy).

Judgments are not vacated by the subsequent death of a party. They survive for or against the representative of the decedent (see §§ 15.1 and 15.20). C.R.S. § 15-10-201(6); Ahearn v. Goble, 7 P.2d 409 (Colo. 1932). Judgments entered before or after the death of the defendant are to be presented for allowance, classification, and payment in the same manner as other claims against the estate (see § 15.4; if it became a lien before death see § 15.20). C.R.S. §§ 15-10-201(6) and 15-12-804(1). If a judgment debtor dies after the judgment has become a lien but before...