Short answer. The court with jurisdiction over the estate proceedings hears and determines questions of advancement made, or alleged to have been made, by the deceased to an heir, and its final order on the matter binds both the heir in question and whoever raised the question in the first place.
What the law says
Questions as to advancement made, or alleged to have been made, by the deceased to any heir may be heard and determined by the court having jurisdiction of the estate proceedings; and the final order of the court thereon shall be binding on the person raising the questions and on the heir.
Rule 90, Section 2 — Questions as to advancement to be determined. Read the full provision →
The estate court, not a separate suit
A dispute among heirs over whether the deceased made an advancement to one of them, meaning a lifetime gift meant to be charged against that heir's eventual share, does not have to be litigated in a separate civil action. The rule lets the court that already has jurisdiction over the estate proceedings hear and determine the question directly, within the same case that is already settling the estate. This spares the parties the considerable expense and delay of an entirely independent lawsuit over what is, at bottom, a question closely tied to how the estate should ultimately be divided among the heirs. Keeping the dispute inside the estate proceeding also keeps the same court, already familiar with the estate's assets and the heirs involved, in charge of resolving it.
Binding on both sides once decided
Once the court rules, its final order on the advancement question is binding on both the person who raised the question and the heir the advancement is attributed to, closing off the dispute entirely rather than leaving it open to be relitigated later once the estate has otherwise moved on toward final distribution. This finality really matters for properly planning the eventual partition, since the shares of the heirs cannot be reliably or accurately fixed while an advancement dispute remains open, unresolved, and hanging over the case. Because the order binds both sides named in the rule, neither the heir nor the person who raised the question can reopen it once the estate court has ruled.
Why this matters for the eventual distribution
An advancement, once formally established by the court, is typically brought into account when computing how much of the remaining estate each individual heir is entitled to receive. Resolving the question early on, within the estate proceeding itself, means the eventual project of partition can proceed on a settled factual and legal footing rather than being held hostage to an unresolved side dispute among the heirs that could otherwise drag on indefinitely and delay everyone's eventual inheritance and closure of the case.
Related provisions
- Rule 90, Section 2 — Questions as to advancement to be determined
- Rule 90, Section 3 — By whom expenses of partition paid