Clerks of Superior Court

View this manual, a reference in the School's Indigent Defense Manual Series, free of charge at defendermanuals.sog.unc.edu.

The North Carolina Guardianship Manual discusses the role and responsibilities of attorneys who are appointed to represent allegedly incapacitated respondents in adult guardianship proceedings. It summarizes and analyzes relevant provisions of North Carolina’s guardianship law (Chapter 35A of the North Carolina General Statutes) and discusses in depth the standards for determining incapacity, appointment of guardians, and other significant aspects of guardianship proceedings.

Recently the General Assembly made significant changes to the statutes governing decedents’ estates. These amendments included an effort to capture the range of contested estate issues into a general, defined category and to set rules to govern them. The new legislation designates these matters as “estate proceedings” and goes on to specify the procedures that apply to their adjudication—from filing to litigation to hearing to appeal. This bulletin discusses the new procedural framework for contested estate proceedings.

This bulletin focuses on clerks of superior court in North Carolina and their jurisdiction over the administration of decedent’s estates with few exceptions. Joint accounts with the right of survivorship are commonplace and the clerk of superior court, together with the fiduciary to an estate, should ensure that statutory requirements are met to create the survivorship accounts.

This bulletin seeks to explain, in question and answer format, the process of living probate in North Carolina, a new contested estate proceeding before the clerk of superior court.