South Dakota

South Dakota estates are heard in the Circuit Court of the county where the deceased lived.
South Dakota has adopted the Uniform Probate Code: informal probate on the paperwork through
the clerk acting as registrar, formal probate before a judge where something is disputed, and
unsupervised administration by default.

An uncontested South Dakota estate handled informally involves very little court contact.

Check for a trust before assuming there is an estate

South Dakota is widely regarded as the leading trust jurisdiction in the United States, and
that shapes estate administration here more than any procedural rule.

The state abolished the rule against perpetuities in 1983, so a South Dakota trust can run
indefinitely — a perpetual, or dynasty, trust. Add no state income tax, directed trust
structures and unusually strong privacy protections, and the result is that an enormous volume of
trust assets is administered here for families who live somewhere else entirely.

Two practical consequences:

• A South Dakota decedent may hold most of their wealth in trust rather than in a probate
  estate. Establish what exists before valuing anything.
• A family living in another state may nonetheless have a South Dakota trustee, whose
  administration has to be coordinated with the probate estate wherever that is.

South Dakota is also one of only three states — with Alaska and Tennessee — that lets married
couples opt into community property through a special spousal property trust.

No death tax, no income tax

South Dakota levies no estate tax, no inheritance tax and no state income tax.

Smaller estates

An affidavit procedure collects personal property where the estate qualifies. Ask before opening
a case.

A South Dakota will must be in writing, signed by the testator (or by another in the
testator's presence and at their direction), and signed by two witnesses. The testator must be
18 or older and of sound mind.

Holographic wills are valid

South Dakota accepts a will whether or not witnessed where the signature and the material
provisions are in the testator's handwriting. No date is required, though you should write one —
an undated handwritten will is the document that starts an argument about which version came last.

Valid is not the same as sufficient. A handwritten will cannot create the trust that most South
Dakota estate plans are actually built around.

The will is often the smaller half of the plan

In a state whose trust law permits perpetual dynasty trusts, a well-advised South Dakota plan
frequently centres on a trust, with the will acting as a pour-over to catch anything not
already transferred. If you have a trust, the will must be drafted alongside it. A standalone will
that contradicts an existing trust is the most common source of avoidable conflict.

The ranch or farm still has to be decided

For many South Dakota families the real question is land: one child farms or ranches, the
others do not, the land is valuable on paper and generates modest income, and dividing it equally
can make the operation unviable. A trust can hold it whole; life insurance can equalise; a lease
back to the operating child can work. Decide it in your lifetime and tell everyone.

Also

• Name an alternate personal representative and waive bond.
• Say expressly what happens to mineral interests and water rights.
• A surviving spouse has an elective share whatever the will says.

Yes. A South Dakota personal representative is entitled to reasonable compensation for
services performed. South Dakota prescribes no percentage.

What "reasonable" turns on

The size and nature of the estate, the time actually required, the complexity and difficulty of
the work, the skill and any special expertise it demanded, the responsibility assumed, and the
results achieved.

Records decide it

With no schedule to point at, contemporaneous time records are the argument. Dated entries
from the first week showing what was done and how long it took.

Where a trust is involved, be clear which hat you are wearing

This is the South Dakota complication. Where the deceased had a trust as well as a will, the
same person is frequently both personal representative of the estate and trustee of the trust —
and the two roles carry separate compensation, from separate funds, for separate work.

Keep the time records separate too. Charging the estate for trust administration, or the trust for
probate work, is the sort of thing that looks careless at best when a beneficiary examines it.

Unsupervised means unreviewed, not approved

Nobody examines the fee as it is taken. An interested person may petition the Circuit Court
afterwards, and the burden of justifying it sits with the representative. Agree it in writing
with the beneficiaries first.

If the will fixes the figure

A will provision governs. Under the UPC framework the representative may also renounce it before
qualifying and take reasonable compensation instead.

Tax

Compensation is taxable income federally. South Dakota has no state income tax, so no state
bite — and no death tax for the fee to be deducted against. A family representative who is also a
beneficiary usually gains nothing by taking one.

A South Dakota personal representative is reimbursed from the estate for the reasonable
expenses of administration, separately from compensation for their time.

Normally claimable

• Funeral, burial or cremation, the headstone, and a reasonable reception.
• Circuit Court filing fees, certified letters, certified death certificates, and publication of
  the notice to creditors.
• Attorney's fees, and accountant's fees for the final Form 1040 and any Form 1041.
• Trustee and trust accounting fees where a trust has to be administered alongside the estate —
  charged to the trust, not the estate, but budget for both.
• Appraisals of farm and ranch land, grain in storage, livestock, machinery, mineral and royalty
  interests, water rights, vehicles, firearms and collections.
• On a farm or ranch, the genuine costs of carrying the operation through a season where that
  serves the estate: feed, hay, fuel, veterinary care, fencing, hired labour, drying and storage.
• Carrying costs on estate property until sale: insurance, property tax, utilities, security,
  maintenance and snow removal.
• Winterising a property so an empty house survives a South Dakota winter, and hail and storm
  damage mitigation.
• Cleaning, clearing, storing, moving and shipping contents.
• Travel on estate business at a reasonable rate — distances here are long.
• Bond premiums where bond was not waived.

Normally not claimable

• The representative's lost wages, meals near home, or personal spending.
• Costs run up for one beneficiary's convenience rather than the estate's.
• Improvements beyond preparing a property for sale as it stands.
• Anything without a receipt.

The rule that decides it

Open an estate bank account and run everything through it — and keep it strictly separate from
any trust account. Mixing the two is the error that takes longest to unpick.

South Dakota's informal probate makes an ordinary estate manageable for a family member. The
state's trust law creates a distinctive second question: whether the estate should be administered
alongside a professional trustee who is already involved.

Consider a professional when

• There is a South Dakota trust as well as a will — which, given the state's trust industry, is
  more likely here than almost anywhere. Where a corporate trustee is already administering the
  bulk of the family's wealth, having them take the estate too is often simpler and cheaper than
  running two administrations in parallel.
• The estate holds a working ranch or farm and the family is not agreed on its future. Asking
  one sibling to decide the fate of the land while the others watch invites a dispute.
• There are mineral or royalty interests, or water rights, which need tracing and specialist
  valuation.
• The deceased was a non-resident whose only South Dakota connection was a trust, so the
  interaction between a South Dakota trustee and probate elsewhere has to be managed.
• There is conflict among the beneficiaries, or a will contest looks likely.
• A beneficiary is a minor or incapacitated, so a trust runs for years — and in South Dakota it
  may run a great deal longer than that.

What it costs

Corporate fiduciaries here are numerous and competitive, and charge a negotiated percentage with a
minimum annual fee. Attorneys bill hourly. A farm and ranch management company charging a
percentage of income is often the better-targeted arrangement for the land. Ask for all of it in
writing.

Middle ground

Appoint a family member, waive bond, and let them retain a South Dakota attorney at the estate's
expense — plus a ranch manager where there is land, rather than a full corporate fiduciary.

A named representative who does not want the job can decline before appointment.