2020 Georgia Code
Title 53 - Wills, Trusts, and Administration of Estates
Chapter 6 - Administrators and Personal Representatives
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.)

- 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.

- 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).

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 The provisions for an "administrator de bonis non" that appeared in former 53-6-30 are repealed.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.

- 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).

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