Gross estate

What it means

Gross means before debts. A house worth four hundred thousand dollars with a three hundred thousand dollar mortgage is four hundred thousand of gross estate and one hundred thousand of value to anybody.

Some statutes count the gross figure and some count it less liens and encumbrances, and the difference decides whether a family is inside a small-estate route or outside it.

Why it matters

Two states with the same dollar ceiling can give opposite answers on the same estate, purely because one counts gross and the other counts net. Wisconsin does both, in adjacent sections.

It is also the figure federal estate tax starts from, which is why the word appears in two unrelated contexts.

When you are likely to meet it

• On any affidavit asking for the value of the estate, where the wording will say gross or will say less liens and encumbrances.
• When deciding whether a simplified route is available.

How this varies by state

Whether the ceiling is measured gross or net of liens is set state by state, and sometimes section by section.

Related terms

• Augmented estateA wider pot than the probate estate, used to work out what a surviving spouse may claim.
• Date-of-death valueWhat something was worth on the day the person died. It is the number the estate, and often the tax, is measured by.
• EstateEverything the person owned at the moment they died, treated as one thing that has to be settled.
• Estate taxA tax on the value of what somebody left, paid by the estate before anything is distributed.
• Fair market valueWhat a willing buyer would pay a willing seller, neither under pressure and both knowing the facts.
• Probate assetSomething owned in the deceased person's name alone, with nobody named to receive it.
• Small-estate affidavitA sworn statement a state allows instead of a full probate case for an estate under its ceiling. What it is called, what it reaches and whether a court is involved differ by state.

Sahvelo guidance that uses this

• Small estate procedures