Art. 3405.Testament Probated Outside Louisiana

A will that has already gone through probate somewhere else, another state or another country, does not need to run the entire probate gauntlet again once an ancillary succession opens in Louisiana. Rather than restating a separate procedure inside the Code of Civil Procedure, Article 3405 points to a specific chapter of the Revised Statutes built for exactly this purpose: recognizing a testament that another jurisdiction has already probated.

The practical effect is one of substitution rather than duplication. Instead of proceeding through Chapter 3 of Title I, the same probate process Louisiana uses for a will presented here for the first time, the out-of-state probate order becomes the operative document, and R.S. 9:2421 through 9:2425 supply the mechanics for having it recognized so the ancillary succession can move forward on that basis. This connects to Article 2888's foreign-testament provisions in the ordinary probate chapter and to Article 3433's affidavit procedure for a small ancillary succession involving a nondomiciliary decedent who died testate, both of which deal with related aspects of out-of-state wills.

Because the governing rules live outside the Code of Civil Procedure, anyone needing the specific mechanics of that recognition process has to consult the Revised Statutes directly. Article 3405's role within Book VI is limited to establishing that this separate statutory scheme, not Louisiana's own probate chapter, controls.