Certificate of Inheritance Translation for the USA

The probate court and the letters counterpart

An estate in the United States is usually administered under the supervision of a state probate court; the authority to administer and distribute it is granted to a person by the letters of administration the court issues (where there is no will) or by letters testamentary (where there is one). A Turkish certificate of inheritance is not the counterpart of those documents; it is a foreign record showing the heirs and their shares. In translation the certificate is not equated with a state document; the name of the issuing authority and the numbers are carried over in their original form. How the certificate will be used in a matter in the United States, whether submitted directly or added to a local probate file, depends entirely on the state and the court.

The heirs’ shares are usually written as fractions; those fractions, numerators and denominators alike, are preserved exactly and never turned into decimals. Terms denoting the degree of kinship (the equivalents of spouse and descendant) are conveyed so as to keep the capacity stated in the source rather than approximating it; who inherits in what capacity bears directly on how the estate is distributed.

How a probate matter runs in the United States varies with whether the deceased left a will and with the state in which the assets are held; under some small estate procedures the court stage is simplified, while a matter involving immovable property becomes more involved. A Turkish certificate is treated in these local procedures as foreign evidence of who the heirs are. Knowing at the outset which procedure the document will support keeps the translation from being scoped too widely and saves an application to the wrong court.

There is no federal scheme; the state decides

How a Turkish certificate will be treated in the United States varies from state to state; some states accept a foreign certificate of heirship as the basis for a local transaction, while in other cases a separate local estate procedure (ancillary probate) may be needed. That comes up in particular where the deceased held immovable property or a bank account in the United States. The translation does not stand in for those procedures; it allows the court or the bank official to read the heirs, the shares and the dates correctly. Which state the matter goes to also affects the form in which the document will be asked for.

The certificate rarely travels alone in a file; a civil registry extract and the death certificate sit alongside it. The spelling of names, the dates and the kinship details are expected to be consistent across these documents; a single name written differently from the passport weakens the impression that the file belongs to one and the same person.

When a US bank learns that an account holder has died it usually freezes the account and looks for the letters of authority issued by the court before allowing access to the estate; the Turkish certificate is the source document showing the heirs in the local process through which that authority is obtained. A translation clear enough for a bank or court official to read therefore keeps the process moving without delay. Where an estate holds several items, each may be dealt with in a different state or institution, which means the document has to be used consistently across more than one file.

The signed certificate of accuracy

There is no sworn translator regime in the United States; the formal assurance behind a translation is the signed certificate of accuracy attached to it. The statement declares that the translation is complete and accurate and carries the translator’s name and contact details, the date and a signature. A court, bank or land registry official assesses the document together with that statement. Some procedures may also require the translator’s signature on the statement to be attested before a notary (notarisation); that is a separate step, securing whose signature it is rather than the content of the statement, and it depends on the practice of the authority you are dealing with.

• Do not equate the Turkish certificate with letters of administration or letters testamentary.
• Convey the share fractions exactly; do not turn them into decimals.
• Check that the certificate of accuracy is attached to the translation.

The United States is a party to the Hague Apostille Convention; where an apostille is needed for the certificate, which is a judicial document, it is obtained from the relevant judicial justice commission, and the current position should be confirmed from the official HCCH list. You can run your matter through our single office in Kızılay, Ankara, see the cost on our pricing page and upload your document to request a quote. This page is for general information and does not take the place of legal advice; for a probate matter consult the probate court of the state you are going to and your lawyer.