Short answer. For a money debt, you must file a claim in the estate case — Rule 87, Section 1 of the Rules of Court forbids commencing a collection action against the executor or administrator. Suits to recover specific property from the estate, enforce a lien on it, or claim damages for injury may still be filed against him.
What the law says
No action upon a claim for the recovery of money or debt or interest thereon shall be commenced against the executor or administrator
Rule 87, Section 1 — Actions which may and which may not be brought against executor or administrator. Read the full provision →
What the law says
actions to recover real or personal property, or an interest therein, from the estate, or to enforce a lien thereon, and actions to recover damages for an injury to person or property, real or personal, may be commenced against him
Rule 87, Section 1 — Actions which may and which may not be brought against executor or administrator. Read the full provision →
Money claims go through the estate case
The rule's opening line is an absolute bar: no action upon a claim for the recovery of money or debt or interest thereon shall be commenced against the executor or administrator. If the deceased owed you money — a loan, an unpaid invoice, accrued interest — you cannot start a collection suit against the person now administering the estate. The route the Rules provide instead is to present your claim in the settlement proceeding itself, where all the deceased's creditors are gathered before one court. The logic is orderly payment: the estate's debts are inventoried, ranked and paid together, rather than raced to judgment in scattered suits that would favour the fastest creditor over the rest.
What you can still sue for
The same section preserves three kinds of action. Actions to recover real or personal property, or an interest therein, from the estate — where you say the thing in the administrator's hands is yours, not the deceased's. Actions to enforce a lien thereon — where your claim is secured against specific property, such as a mortgage. And actions to recover damages for an injury to person or property, real or personal — where the estate's liability arises from harm done rather than a debt owed. All three may be commenced against him, meaning the executor or administrator, in an ordinary suit outside the settlement proceeding.
Why the line falls where it does
The distinction is not arbitrary. A money claim asks the estate to pay out of its general assets, so it competes with every other creditor and belongs in the proceeding where that competition is refereed. A suit to recover your own property asks for something that was never the estate's to distribute; making you queue with creditors would let the estate keep what it does not own. A lien-holder already has a defined security interest in an identified asset. The practical consequence of getting this wrong runs one way: a creditor who sues instead of filing a claim faces dismissal, and time spent in the wrong forum is time running against the claim period fixed in the estate case.
Sorting out which side you are on
Start by characterising honestly what you want from the estate. If the answer is payment — however the obligation arose, loan, services, unpaid price — you are a money claimant, and the settlement court's notice to creditors governs where and when you file. If the answer is a specific thing — land, a vehicle, shares you say belong to you, or property securing your mortgage — an action against the administrator remains open. Watch the estate proceedings closely either way: courts set periods for presenting claims, and a creditor who learns of the settlement late has far fewer options. The published notice to creditors is the document that starts that clock.