Art. 3421.Small Successions Defined

Article 3421 is the gateway to all of Title V. Every simplification the small-succession track offers, the reduced court costs of Article 3422, the affidavit-only path of Chapter 2, and the streamlined judicial track of Chapter 3, depends on an estate first qualifying as a small succession under this definition.

Three separate paths lead to that qualification. The first covers a person who died domiciled in Louisiana, leaving property with a gross value of one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars or less as of the date of death. The second extends the same dollar threshold to an ancillary succession, the succession of a person domiciled outside Louisiana who left property here, so long as that Louisiana property's value falls within the same limit; a decedent's overall wealth elsewhere in the world does not disqualify the Louisiana portion of the estate. The third path ignores value altogether: any succession where the decedent's death occurred at least twenty years before the affidavit is executed qualifies as small regardless of what the property is worth, a mechanism aimed at clearing title on estates that were never formally settled, often because heirs let the matter sit for a generation or more.

Value under the first two paths is measured as gross value, not net of debts, and as of the date of death rather than the date the affidavit or petition is prepared. The dollar figure itself has moved over the years, most recently in 2024, reflecting the legislature's periodic adjustment of the threshold. Once an estate clears one of these three gates, Chapter 2 offers the option to skip a judicial proceeding entirely through a sworn affidavit, while Chapter 3 provides a scaled-down judicial alternative for estates that still need court involvement.