Estate claim (massekrav)
Also known as § 93 claim, administrative claim, costs of the estate
An estate claim is a cost the estate itself incurs after the bankruptcy order — and it is paid before every claim the creditors already held.
- Rank
- Konkursloven § 93 (the Danish Bankruptcy Act)
- Typically
- The trustee's fee and running the estate
- Paid
- Before all others
In practice
The bankruptcy queue has four steps, and estate claims sit at the top. These are not the creditors’ claims but the estate’s own: the trustee’s fee, the cost of realising the assets, the rent on premises the estate keeps running.
The logic is that nobody would take on a bankruptcy estate if the fee stood last in the queue. The price is paid by the creditors, because estate claims eat into the very funds that would otherwise be distributed.
For an ordinary supplier this means the question is rarely whether there are assets — but whether there are enough to get past § 93 and § 95.
Where it commonly goes wrong
- A delivery made after the order is filed as an ordinary claim. If the estate ordered the goods, it is an estate claim, and it stands first rather than last.
- Assuming assets mean a dividend. The estate’s own costs come first. An estate with assets can easily end with nothing for the unsecured creditors.