A faster way to settle Native trust estates, starting in Alaska

When a family member dies owning trust land — like a Native allotment — settling their estate has meant a slow, paper-bound federal probate process. The Interior Department is trying to fix that, and Alaska is first in line.

Interior has launched an online system that lets Alaska Native and American Indian families handle these estates from a computer: report a death, upload documents, provide family history, and track a case as it moves through the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

It replaces a mail-and-paper workflow long criticized for delays.

For Alaska Natives, trust and restricted assets that pass through a separate federal probate system, not the ordinary courts. That includes Native allotments, inherited interests in that land, and Individual Indian Money accounts.

Because these estates are governed by federal rules and often involve heirs scattered across many people and generations, they can take years to settle — and until they do, families can be stuck in limbo over land they've used for decades.

Alaska isn't just included in the rollout; it's the test case. The BIA's Alaska Region says the state's tribal and village workers who help families through probate will be the first in the country trained on the new system, with sessions this week in Fairbanks, Nome, Kotzebue, and Anchorage.