Which office takes the filing in Springfield, who runs it, what it costs, the local rules that trip people up, and which of the three Tennessee paths your estate is on.
Tennessee no longer has a small estate affidavit you hand to a bank. The 2023 rewrite of the Small Estate Probate Act replaced it with a sworn petition to the court clerk, who issues Limited Letters. Pages still describing the old affidavit are out of date, and the clerk's office will turn you around.
Probate in Robertson County is heard in Chancery Court and filings go to the Clerk and Master. No private act moves probate elsewhere in this county, so the general Tennessee rule applies: chancery holds the jurisdiction and the Clerk and Master runs it.
Get the room right. The Clerk and Master is in Room 103 at 501 S. Main Street. Room 109 in the same building is the Circuit Court Clerk, a different office entirely.
Robertson shares the Nineteenth Judicial District's electronic filing rules with Montgomery County, so e-filing may be available here. Confirm with the office before you prepare anything.
Local rules that change what you should do, and that a statewide guide will not tell you.
Robertson County publishes a chancery fee schedule effective January 1, 2026, but it is served as a download rather than a readable page, so the figures are not reproduced here. Call 615-384-5650 for the cost of your filing, or ask the office to email the schedule. For scale, Tennessee counties generally charge roughly $340 to $450 to open an estate in 2026, plus newspaper publication.
Personal property in the person's name alone totalling $50,000 or less, counted without any real estate, and at least 45 days since the death. You file a sworn petition listing every asset and every debt, and the clerk issues Limited Letters you present to the bank. Expect a bond requirement.
More than $50,000 in personal property, or anything the smaller track cannot carry. A personal representative is appointed, notice to creditors is published, and claims run four months from first publication. Most uncontested estates settle in six to twelve months.
A will admitted for the limited purpose of establishing title, with no personal representative appointed and no administration opened. It fits where nothing needs an administrator. Whether it suits a given case is a question for the clerk's office.
The statute directs the clerk's office to assist with the small estate petition, and they do. They will tell you which form, which blanks, where to sign, and what it costs.
They will not tell you whether to open a small estate or a full administration, who inherits, what to do about a disputed will, or how to handle real estate. Those are legal questions, and a clerk answering them would be practicing law. That line is where people get stuck, and it is the line this site exists to help you stand on the right side of.
Every path above starts the same way. Someone has to turn a pile of statements, bills, and titles into one list the court and the family can both read. That is the part I do.
$249 flat. Nothing owed until you have seen it.
I am in Murfreesboro, about an hour and a quarter from Springfield. Send the county and roughly what the estate holds, and I will tell you exactly what to scan and what to leave alone.