Colorado Trust and Estate Accounting Requirements

Current as of September 2026. General information, not legal or tax advice.

Colorado’s defining feature is that most fiduciary accounting never reaches the court. The inventory and the accounting go to interested persons, and they are filed only if the estate closes formally. Colorado has adopted both uniform codes — the Colorado Uniform Trust Code at C.R.S. Title 15 Article 5, effective January 1, 2019, and the Colorado Probate Code at Articles 10 to 17 — and its principal and income act is current.

Who must provide an accounting in Colorado

C.R.S. section 15-5-813 requires the trustee to keep qualified beneficiaries reasonably informed and to respond promptly to reasonable requests. Subsection (3) is the reporting provision: at least annually and at termination, the trustee sends to distributees and permissible distributees of income or principal, and to other qualified beneficiaries who request it, a report of the trust property, liabilities, receipts and disbursements including the source and amount of the trustee’s compensation, and a listing of trust assets with market values where feasible. Subsection (6) is Colorado-specific and worth noting: nothing in the section imposes a duty to inform or report to any person other than a qualified beneficiary, or as directed by the court. Arizona’s equivalent runs more broadly, to other beneficiaries who request it, so the two are not interchangeable. Conservators must report annually under C.R.S. section 15-14-420 unless the court directs otherwise.

What a Colorado trust accounting must contain

Section 15-5-813(3) sets the trust reporting contents. The conservator’s report under section 15-14-420(2) is a hybrid and is easy to underestimate: it requires a list of estate assets under the conservator’s control and a list of receipts, disbursements and distributions for the period, and also a description of the services provided to the protected person and recommendations on whether the conservatorship is still needed and whether its scope should change. A purely financial schedule does not satisfy the statute. An allowed intermediate report adjudicates the liabilities of the conservator, counsel and agents for matters adequately disclosed.

Income and principal allocation in Colorado

Colorado’s principal and income act is Article 1.2 of Title 15, cited as the Uniform Fiduciary Income and Principal Act, added by SB 21-171 and effective January 1, 2022. Of the Mountain West states we cover, Colorado is the only one operating under the 2018 act; Arizona and Nevada both remain on the 1997 version. Allocation work does not transfer between them, and a fiduciary administering related trusts across the region will be applying two different regimes at once.

Filing an accounting with the Colorado probate court

C.R.S. section 15-12-706 requires an inventory within three months after appointment, in reasonable detail, at fair market value as of the date of death, showing the type and amount of any encumbrance, and carrying the representative’s oath or affirmation that it is complete and accurate so far as the representative is informed. Subsection (2) is the important one: the representative sends a copy to interested persons who request it, or may file the original with the court. Filing is optional. Informal closing under section 15-12-1003 is by verified statement, filed no earlier than six months after the appointment of a general personal representative or one year after the date of death, whichever occurs first, certifying that a full written account has been furnished to the affected distributees. Formal closing under section 15-12-1001 is available on the representative’s petition at any time, or on another interested person’s petition after one year, and the court may consider the final account or compel or approve an accounting and distribution. Colorado publishes standard forms, including JDF 941 Decedent’s Estate Inventory, JDF 942 Interim/Final Accounting, and JDF 885 Conservator’s Report, and the instructions for JDF 941 and 942 direct that they be sent to interested persons and not filed with the court unless the estate is being closed formally.

When a Colorado accounting is contested

One structural point matters here. Colorado’s section 15-12-505 does not carry the annual accounting sentence that the Uniform Probate Code includes at section 3-505 and that Arizona retained, so there is no Colorado statute requiring annual personal representative accounts even in supervised administration. An annual account in a supervised Colorado estate comes from the court’s own order or from local practice. Combined with the default of delivering rather than filing, the practical result is that a contested Colorado matter often begins with no court-filed accounting record at all.

How T.E.A. Fiduciary helps

We prepare Colorado trust, estate and conservatorship accountings, including the non-financial content the conservator’s report requires and allocation work under the current Uniform Fiduciary Income and Principal Act, as a licensed, insured CPA firm practicing fiduciary accounting exclusively. We do not prepare tax returns. We work alongside your attorney and your tax preparer so that the accounting and the Form 1041 agree.

This page provides general information about Colorado fiduciary accounting requirements and is not legal or tax advice. Statutes, court rules and official forms change; confirm current requirements with counsel.

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Primary source: Colorado Revised Statutes, Title 15, Colorado General Assembly.