Syfert Injury Law Firm

Your Trusted Partner in Personal Injury & Workers' Compensation

Call Now: 904-383-7448

2018 Georgia Code 53-6-21 | Car Wreck Lawyer

TITLE 53 WILLS, TRUSTS, AND ADMINISTRATION OF ESTATES

Section 6. Administrators and Personal Representatives, 53-6-1 through 53-6-64.

ARTICLE 3 LETTERS OF ADMINISTRATION

53-6-21. Petition to court; contents.

  1. Every petition for letters of administration shall be made to the probate court of the county of domicile of the decedent, or, if the decedent was not domiciled in this state, then in a county where the estate or some portion of it is located.
  2. The petition shall set forth the full name, the legal domicile, and the date of death of the decedent; the mailing address and place of domicile of the petitioner; the names, ages or majority status, and addresses of heirs, stating their relationship to the decedent; and, in the event full particulars are lacking, the reasons for any omission. The petition shall conclude with a prayer for issuance of letters of administration. If a prior personal representative has qualified and a copy of the original petition is attached, it is unnecessary for the new petition to repeat relevant and unchanged information from the original petition.

(Code 1981, §53-6-21, enacted by Ga. L. 1996, p. 504, § 10; Ga. L. 1997, p. 1352, § 13.)

Cross references.

- Provisions regarding jurisdiction of probate court over estate of nonresident with property or causes of action located in more than one county, § 15-9-32.

Law reviews.

- For article surveying wills, trusts, and administration of estates, see 34 Mercer L. Rev. 323 (1982). For article commenting on the 1997 amendment of this Code section, see 14 Ga. St. U.L. Rev. 313 (1997).

COMMENT

This section replaces subsection (a) of former OCGA Sec. 53-6-26. See Code Sec. 53-1-2 for definitions of "administrator" and "personal representative." The provisions for an "administrator de bonis non" that appeared in former 53-6-30 are repealed. As this section indicates, if an administrator who has already qualified is for some reason unable to serve or continue serving, the person who replaces that administrator will also be referred to as an "administrator". The petition for that person's letters need not repeat all the information that appeared in the original petition, but rather need contain only such information as is different from the information in the original petition.

JUDICIAL DECISIONS

Editor's notes.

- In light of the similarity of the statutory provisions, decisions under former O.C.G.A. § 53-6-26 are included in the annotations for this Code section.

Jurisdiction.

- After a probate court of one county assumed jurisdiction over the administration of an estate, that court is presumed to have jurisdiction; and an application made to the probate court of another county for the purpose of administering such estate cannot be entertained while the first court retains jurisdiction. Guyett v. Guyett, 160 Ga. App. 622, 287 S.E.2d 632 (1981) (decided under former O.C.G.A. § 53-6-26).

Cited in Escareno v. Carl Nolte Sohne GmbH, 270 Ga. 264, 507 S.E.2d 743 (1998).

RESEARCH REFERENCES

10 Am. Jur. Pleading and Practice Forms, Executors and Administrators, §§ 43, 44.

Cases Citing O.C.G.A. § 53-6-21

Total Results: 1  |  Sort by: Relevance  |  Newest First

Copy

Escareno v. Carl Nolte Sohne GmbH, 270 Ga. 264 (Ga. 1998).

Published | Supreme Court of Georgia | Nov 23, 1998 | 507 S.E.2d 743, 98 Fulton County D. Rep. 3942

...nt. OCGA § 15-9-32 provides that, [w]hen a nonresident decedent has property or a cause of action in more than one county, letters of administration may be granted in any county in which such property or cause of action is located. Similarly, OCGA § 53-6-21 provides that application for letters of administration of a nonresident’s estate shall be made in a county where some portion of the estate is....
...bonds owned by *266Alabama resident, sufficient for granting of letters of administration over Alabama decedent’s estate in Muscogee County); Tweed v. Houghton, 103 Ga. App. 57 (118 SE2d 496) (1961) (construing Ga. Code Ann. § 113-1211, now OCGA § 53-6-21, administration of nonresident decedent’s estate in Bartow County proper where decedent was involved in accident in Bartow County and had liability policy from foreign insurer that had agent or place of business in Bartow County).