Art. 3321.Interim Allowance For Maintenance During Administration

Succession administration can stretch on for months or years while debts are paid, property is sold or preserved, and a final tableau works its way through notice and homologation. People who depended on the decedent for support cannot always wait that long. Article 3321 addresses that gap with an interim allowance: a court-ordered periodic payment from succession funds meant to maintain a surviving spouse, heir, or legatee while the estate is still being administered.

Two conditions have to be met before a court will order one. First, the succession has to be sufficiently solvent, meaning there is enough in the estate to cover its debts with room to make these interim payments without jeopardizing creditors. Second, the court has to conclude the allowance is necessary. Even then, the amount advanced cannot exceed what the recipient is eventually due, which keeps the allowance from becoming a windfall; it is an advance charged against that person's own eventual share, not extra money drawn from the estate at large.

A surviving spouse, heir, or legatee does not have to wait for the representative to volunteer an allowance. Article 3321 lets them compel payment by contradictory motion, a motion the representative can contest, directly against the succession representative. Whether the allowance starts by petition or by contradictory motion, notice of the request has to be published once, and any opposition must be filed within ten days of that publication.