New Jersey has 21 counties and a Surrogate's Court in every one of them. Each court holds its own dockets, indexes and estate files, and there is no statewide search that reaches across them.
Jonathan Khorsandi on Sep 04, 2026
New Jersey has 21 counties and a Surrogate's Court in every one of them. Each court holds its own dockets, indexes and estate files, and there is no statewide search that reaches across them. Probate is filed in the county where the decedent lived, and no will can be admitted until 10 days after the death.
Two of the counties covered here, Middlesex and Morris, publish a free online estate index. Neither publishes document images, so confirming a filing online and reading the file are two separate jobs.
That split is why most agents work one county and stop. It is also why the record is available months before a deed transfer shows up anywhere else.
Yes, but not under the statute or the access law most articles cite.
The authority is New Jersey Court Rule 1:38-1: court records within the custody and control of the judiciary are open for public inspection and copying, except as otherwise provided in the rule. The exclusions sit in R. 1:38-3, not in 1:38-1. Adoption files are excluded at R. 1:38-3(d)(16) and guardianship matters at R. 1:38-3(e). A standard decedent estate file is not excluded.
The Open Public Records Act does not apply here. OPRA does not reach the judiciary, and a Surrogate's Court file is a judiciary record. Filing an OPRA request for a probate file produces a rejection, not a record. Ask the Surrogate's office directly, in person, by mail or by phone, using whatever request form that county uses.
A typical New Jersey estate file contains the will once admitted, the letters testamentary or letters of administration naming the personal representative, the estate inventory, accountings and distributions, and the names and addresses of heirs and beneficiaries.
With the Surrogate's Court in the county where the decedent lived at death, not with a county clerk and not with a central state court.
The Surrogate's Court is a court of limited jurisdiction that handles uncontested estates: admitting wills, appointing personal representatives, issuing letters. Every one of the 21 counties runs its own. The NJ Courts Surrogates Roster is the authoritative contact list for all of them.
Contested estates, heir disputes and complex trust matters go to the Superior Court, Chancery Division, Probate Part. Lower volume, but worth monitoring in high-value markets, because a contested estate is a slower estate.
County surrogates have recorded probates since 1804. Before that, New Jersey wills went to the registrar of the Prerogative Court, and those older records are with the State Archives rather than the county.
Testate, meaning there is a will, produces a complaint for probate, a named executor and letters testamentary. Where the will grants a power of sale, and most do, the executor can market and sell without unanimous heir consent.
Intestate, meaning no valid will, produces an application for letters of administration and a court-appointed administrator. There is no will granting a power of sale, so an administrator's authority over real property is materially more constrained. These estates are often the more motivated ones, because several heirs who never planned for the situation now jointly own a house none of them lives in.
County by county, starting with the county of residence. There are three routes, and only one of them is a search box.
1. The county Surrogate's online estate index. Where it exists, it confirms that a filing exists and gives you a docket number. It does not give you documents.
2. The Surrogate's office itself. Staff will search the docket books and indexes on request. Bring the decedent's full name, an approximate date of death, and photo ID. There is no statewide "Surrogates' Judiciary Records Request Form": the Judiciary's general instrument is the New Jersey Judiciary Records Request Form, CN 10200, and in practice each county Surrogate uses its own local request form or letter. Ask the office which one it wants before you drive over.
3. The New Jersey State Archives, for historical work only. Covered further down.
Central New Jersey, covering New Brunswick, Edison, Woodbridge and Piscataway, with dense suburban housing stock and an ageing homeowner base.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Court | Middlesex County Surrogate's Court |
| Address | 75 Bayard Street, 1st Floor, County Administration Building, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 |
| Mailing | Middlesex County Surrogate Court, PO Box 790, New Brunswick, NJ 08903 |
| Phone | 732-745-3055 |
| Hours | Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 3:45 p.m., by appointment only. Tuesdays to 6:00 p.m., also by appointment |
| Appointments | middlesexcountysurrogate.as.me |
| Online estate index | Index of Estates, free, no registration |
Middlesex is appointment only. Book before you travel. The index searches by last name, first name, docket number, case type, birth date, death date and town, which makes the death-date field the most useful filter in the state for working a cohort rather than a single name.
Two limits the county itself publishes. The index does not comprise all information from the official Surrogate Court records available to the public, and the data may be subject to a 24-hour or greater delay. A missing result is not proof of a missing estate. The county publishes no start year for the online index; county surrogate records generally begin in 1804, but that is a statewide fact, not a stated coverage range for this database.
Northern New Jersey, covering Morristown, Parsippany, Madison and Chatham. High median home values, so estate properties here often carry decades of accumulated equity.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Court | Morris County Surrogate's Court |
| Address | 10 Court Street, Administration and Records Building, 5th Floor, Morristown, NJ 07960 |
| Mailing | PO Box 900, Morristown, NJ 07963-0900 |
| Phone | (973) 285-6500 |
| [email protected] | |
| Hours | Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., last appointment slot 3:00 p.m. |
| Online estate search | morrissurrogate.com, index of estates from 1804 to the present, updated every 24 hours |
Morris is the strongest published portal of the two. The index states its own coverage, 1804 to present, and its own refresh interval, every 24 hours. Note the mailing ZIP differs from the physical one: a request addressed to "Court Street, 07960" without the box number can come back to you.
| County | Access route | Online estate search |
|---|---|---|
| Middlesex | County Index of Estates, plus appointment-only counter | Yes |
| Morris | morrissurrogate.com, 1804 to present | Yes |
| Bergen | No searchable database published. Remote probate processing by mail or email, (201) 336-6700 | No |
| Burlington | County publishes a Surrogate records search page. Coverage, fees and registration are not stated on it, so confirm with the office | Unconfirmed |
| Other 17 counties | Contact the Surrogate directly. Start from the Surrogates Roster | Varies |
Hours vary by county, and Middlesex and Morris differ from each other by 45 minutes at both ends of the day. Confirm hours and appointment policy before visiting.
The New Jersey State Archives in Trenton holds Secretary of State wills and inventories from the late 1660s through 1900, and Superior Court wills from 1901 through 1952. Requests go through the Probate Record Search Request portal, which takes credit cards.
The fee is $10 per search, covering a single 5-year span and including copies up to 10 pages, then $1 per additional page. Search fees are non-refundable whether or not the record is found. The online order form allows up to 10 records from different databases in one order; the paper county wills form allows up to five searches per request.
For records after 1952, the referral is the Clerk of the Superior Court. Get the current mailing address and phone from the Superior Court Clerk's copies of court records page rather than from a secondary listing.
For lead generation, none of this is the point. The Archives is a genealogy and historical-research resource. Active prospecting runs on current filings, which means the county Surrogates.
Surrogate fees are set by statute at N.J.S.A. 22A:2-30 and the amounts are uniform statewide. Only the county collecting them changes, along with payment methods and turnaround. The Morris County fee schedule matches the statute and is the clearest published copy.
| Service | Fee |
|---|---|
| Probate of a will up to 2 pages, including one certificate | $100 |
| Each additional page of the will | $5 |
| Surrogate's (short) certificates | $5 each |
| Search fee, per estate | $10 |
| Plain copy of a will | $3 per page |
| Certified copy of a will with proofs, up to 2 pages | $50, plus $5 per additional page |
| Exemplified will for use in another state | $75 |
| General administration, including one certificate | $125 |
| Certified copy of administration | $50 |
| State Archives probate search, single 5-year span, up to 10 pages | $10, then $1 per page |
The $10 per-estate search fee is what makes speculative name searching expensive. Confirm the filing on a free county index first, then pay for documents only on the estates that matter.
Two statutory clocks set the shape of the timeline, and neither can be shortened.
| Stage | Statutory position |
|---|---|
| Will admitted to probate | Not until 10 days after the testator's death, N.J.S.A. 3B:3-22 |
| Papers filed, executor qualified | May happen at any time after death, before admission, same statute |
| Creditor claims presented | Within 9 months of the date of death, in writing and under oath, N.J.S.A. 3B:22-4 |
| Full administration through deed transfer | Commonly 9 to 18 months. This is a practitioner estimate, not a published figure |
The 10-day rule runs from death, not from the petition, and no surrogate can waive it. Papers can be filed and the executor can qualify inside the window, but the will is not admitted until the 10 days run. In practice, uncontested estates are admitted and letters issued shortly afterwards.
The 9-month creditor period under N.J.S.A. 3B:22-4 is the reason estates cannot be safely distributed quickly. That is a statutory floor close to the lower bound of the commonly cited 9 to 18 month range. The upper bound is practitioner experience, and New Jersey publishes no official estimate of administration duration.
For outreach, the productive window is 60 to 90 days after filing. Earlier and the personal representative is still dealing with qualification. Much later and the property may already be listed.
The filing tells you an estate exists. Four more steps tell you whether it is worth working.
1. Search the county of residence, not the property county. An estate filed in Middlesex can hold a house in Ocean. Start where the person lived, then follow the assets.
2. Read the letters, not just the index entry. The index gives you a name and a docket number. The file tells you whether letters have actually issued, whether it is a testate or intestate administration, and who holds authority.
3. Check what authority the representative actually has. N.J.S.A. 3B:14-23 grants a fiduciary the power to sell at public or private sale, but it applies only in the absence of contrary or limiting provisions in the will, the appointing judgment or order, or another instrument, and subsection (e) excepts property that is specifically disposed of. So an executor under a will with a power of sale can negotiate without unanimous heir consent, subject to those limits, while property specifically devised to a named beneficiary sits outside it. Intestate administrations are more constrained again. Confirming this before you pitch a sale saves the conversation.
4. Match the estate to the parcel and the person. New Jersey estate files do not reliably itemize real property, and the address on a filing is often the attorney's, not the decision-maker's. Cross-reference the decedent's name and last known address against county property records, then skip trace the representative.
Follow-up is where this falls down. New Jersey administrations commonly run 9 to 18 months, so a representative who says no in month two is a different conversation in month seven. A 90-day cadence across your counties is what separates the agents who close probate deals from the ones who collect lists.
Two: Middlesex and Morris. Central and northern New Jersey, one high-volume suburban market and one high-equity one.
Every lead is a verified court filing with a case number, not a death record or a pre-probate prediction. Each one carries the property records matched to the estate, the personal representative skip traced with mailing address, phone and email where available, the attorney of record where one is named, and MLS tracking so you can see whether the property has already listed.
The manual version of this is real work and it does work. It is also two separate court systems with different hours and different request forms, one of them appointment only, an online index in each county that returns names but no documents, property cross-referencing on every case, and skip tracing after that.
You can see the full coverage list at probatedata.com/counties, or start a 7-day trial for $1 and search the New Jersey counties directly.
For the wider method across every state, see the national guide to finding probate records by county.
Yes. New Jersey Court Rule 1:38-1 provides that court records within the custody and control of the judiciary are open for public inspection and copying, with exceptions listed at Rule 1:38-3, including adoption files and guardianship matters. A standard decedent estate file is not excluded, and you do not need to be an heir, an attorney or a party. The Open Public Records Act is the wrong route: OPRA does not reach judiciary records, so an OPRA request for a Surrogate's Court file will be rejected.
County by county, starting with the county where the decedent lived. Morris runs a free online index of estates at morrissurrogate.com covering 1804 to the present, and Middlesex runs a free Index of Estates at surrogatesearch.co.middlesex.nj.us. Neither publishes document images, so reading the actual file means contacting the Surrogate's office by phone, mail or appointment. Bergen publishes no searchable database and handles probate remotely by mail or email.
None. Public access to Surrogate's Court files comes from a court rule rather than a statute: New Jersey Court Rule 1:38-1. N.J.S.A. 3B:3-26 is sometimes cited for this and it is the wrong provision, as it governs probate in New Jersey of a nonresident's will already admitted in another state or country and says nothing about public access.
No will may be admitted to probate until 10 days after the testator's death under N.J.S.A. 3B:3-22, though papers may be filed and the executor may qualify inside that window. Creditors then have nine months from the date of death to present claims under N.J.S.A. 3B:22-4, which sets a practical floor on distribution. Full administration through deed transfer commonly runs 9 to 18 months, which is a practitioner estimate rather than a published figure.
Surrogate fees are set by N.J.S.A. 22A:2-30 and the amounts are uniform statewide, though counties differ in payment methods and turnaround. Probating a will up to two pages costs $100 and includes one certificate, each additional page of the will is $5, and Surrogate's certificates are $5 each. A search costs $10 per estate, a plain copy of a will $3 per page, and a general administration $125 including one certificate.
$10 per search, covering a single five-year span and including copies up to 10 pages, with additional pages at $1 each. Search fees are non-refundable whether or not the record is found. The online order form allows up to 10 records from different databases in a single order, while the paper county wills form allows up to five searches per request.
County Surrogate's Courts have recorded probates since 1804. Before that, New Jersey wills went to the registrar of the Prerogative Court. The New Jersey State Archives holds Secretary of State wills and inventories from the late 1660s through 1900 and Superior Court wills from 1901 through 1952. For records after 1952 the referral is the Clerk of the Superior Court.
Usually, but not always. N.J.S.A. 3B:14-23 empowers a fiduciary to sell real or personal property at public or private sale, but only in the absence of contrary or limiting provisions in the will, the appointing judgment or order, or another instrument, and subsection (e) excepts property that is specifically disposed of. Property specifically devised to a named beneficiary sits outside the power, and intestate administrations, where no will grants a power of sale, are more constrained.
