Connecticut Notice to Creditors in Probate: The 150-Day Rule Explained

One of the most anxiety-inducing parts of administering a Connecticut estate is managing creditors. You are legally required to give them a fair chance to collect what they are owed — but the rules about how and when you do that directly affect how long the estate stays open and whether you face personal liability.

Here is exactly how Connecticut's creditor notice process works.

The 14-Day Publication Requirement

Within 14 days of the Probate Court appointing you as executor or administrator, the court causes a notice to be published in a local newspaper of general circulation. This public notice alerts unknown creditors that an estate has been opened and that they have a window to submit claims.

The cost of this publication is treated as an administrative expense of the estate — it comes out before any distributions to heirs.

You do not have to arrange this yourself. The court handles the publication, but you should confirm it happened and keep a copy of the notice for your records.

The Standard 150-Day Creditor Window

Under Connecticut law, the standard window for creditors to present claims against the estate is 150 days from the date of the fiduciary's appointment. That clock starts when the court issues your Decree Granting Administration or Probate of Will — not from the date of death.

During this 150-day period, you should:

• Continue marshaling assets and filing the inventory (Form PC-440, due within two months of appointment)
• Handle the estate tax return filing (Form CT-706 NT, due within six months of death)
• Avoid making distributions to heirs — distributing before the creditor window closes creates personal liability risk

If a creditor submits a claim, you have 90 days to accept, reject, or pay it.

Using Form PC-234 to Shorten the Window to 90 Days

Connecticut gives executors a powerful tool to accelerate the timeline. By sending Form PC-234 (Fiduciary's Notice to Creditors to Present Claims) via certified mail to all known creditors, you can shorten the window for those creditors from 150 days down to 90 days from the date of the notice.

This is not automatic — you have to take the affirmative step of preparing and mailing these notices yourself. But for estates with identifiable creditors (a mortgage, credit cards, medical bills, utility accounts), it is well worth doing. Shaving 60 days off the creditor period can meaningfully compress the total administration timeline.

Keep certified mail receipts for every notice you send. You will need to document this when you file the Return of Claims.

What Happens After the Window Closes

Within 60 days of the close of the creditor period, you must file Form PC-237 (Return of Claims and List of Notified Creditors) with the Probate Court. This form catalogs every claim you received and documents whether you accepted, rejected, or paid each one.

If you reject a creditor's claim, the rejection triggers its own clock. The creditor then has:

• 30 days to request a hearing before the Probate Court, or
• 120 days to file a lawsuit against the estate in Connecticut Superior Court

Do not ignore submitted claims or fail to provide written notice of your rejection. Silence is not a defense, and a procedural error here can invite expensive litigation that prevents the estate from closing.

The Priority Order for Paying Debts

Once you are ready to pay claims, Connecticut law dictates a strict priority order. This matters enormously if the estate has more debts than assets. The order is:

1. Funeral and burial expenses
2. Estate administration expenses (probate fees, attorney fees, fiduciary fees)
3. Medical expenses of the decedent's last illness
4. State and federal taxes
5. Preferred claims under state law
6. All other general creditor claims (credit cards, personal loans, etc.)

Paying a lower-priority creditor before a higher-priority one creates personal liability. If you pay a credit card company before the estate covers its state tax obligation and then the estate runs short, you can be held personally responsible for the shortfall. Always work through debts in the statutory order.

DAS Claims Are Not a Regular Creditor Issue

One creditor category that operates on its own track is the Department of Administrative Services (DAS), which manages Medicaid (Title 19) estate recovery. When you file the PC-200 petition to open the estate, the court's eFiling system automatically notifies DAS if the decedent, their spouse, or their children ever received state public assistance.

DAS then has up to 90 days (or 45 days for small estates) to evaluate the estate for cost recovery. This is separate from the general 150-day creditor window. Do not distribute assets while the DAS review period is running — if DAS files a lien after you have already distributed assets, the state can pursue you or the heirs directly.

What Makes Connecticut Different

In most states, the creditor window is triggered by a newspaper publication and runs 30 to 90 days. Connecticut's default 150-day window is longer than average, which is one reason Connecticut estates often take 12 to 18 months to close even for straightforward situations.

The Form PC-234 mechanism is underused — many pro se executors do not know it exists. If you have identifiable creditors, send those notices early, document everything, and you can cut two months off a significant bottleneck.

The creditor management chapter of the Connecticut Probate Process Guide walks through the PC-234 notice procedure step by step, provides a debt priority tracker worksheet for categorizing claims in the correct statutory order, and includes a template for the written creditor rejection notice that starts the 30/120-day clock. If managing creditors correctly is keeping you from moving the estate forward, the guide is built precisely for this situation.

See more Connecticut guides →