Updated September 7, 2026. Quick answer: Connecticut does not use the death-based or publication-triggered rule most states use. Deadline to preserve a claim against distributed assets: 150 days after the appointment of the estate’s first fiduciary.
What is the creditor-claim deadline in Connecticut?
| Deadline to preserve a claim against distributed assets | 150 days after the appointment of the estate’s first fiduciary |
“If any claim is not presented on or before the day which is one hundred fifty days from the date of the appointment of the first fiduciary, no fiduciary shall be chargeable for any assets that a fiduciary may have paid or distributed in good faith… Such one-hundred-fifty-day period shall not be interrupted or affected by failure of publication or defective publication of the newspaper notice required by section 45a-354.”
Source: Conn. Gen. Stat. § 45a-356
What makes Connecticut different
Connecticut runs no death-based or publication-triggered bar at all: its single 150-day period counts from the fiduciary’s appointment, is unaffected by whether newspaper publication happens or is defective, and shields the fiduciary from liability for good-faith distributions rather than extinguishing the claim outright.
A note on sourcing: The 150-day figure is verbatim, but § 45a-356 frames it as protecting the fiduciary rather than as a classic claim-extinguishing bar; whether a separate Chapter 802b provision voids the claim itself was not independently confirmed this session.
Does this deadline apply the same way if the estate never opens probate?
These deadlines are creatures of the probate process itself; they run once an estate is opened (by publication, mailing, appointment, or the grant of letters, depending on Connecticut’s own rule above). A creditor of a decedent whose estate never enters probate at all is not cut off by this particular statute, though the underlying debt’s own ordinary statute of limitations still applies.
Sources
| Statute | Conn. Gen. Stat. § 45a-356 |
| Connecticut courts (general reference) | Connecticut judicial branch |
| Confidence | Medium |
Every statute quoted on this page was read directly from the state’s own legislature/code site this session, or, where that site blocked automated access, from a reputable legal-citation mirror quoting the same official text with its official citation (disclosed below). General information, not legal advice; the exact deadline in a given estate can turn on facts (whether a personal representative was appointed, whether notice was ever published or mailed) that only your own probate court file can confirm.
Related: how long you have to contest a will in Connecticut.