In cases of no will or where a will is silent on whether the estate should or should not be supervised, necessity must be shown before supervised administration is granted. If supervised administration is granted, the personal representative unless otherwise ordered by the court will proceed with the same powers as a personal representative who is not supervised with the notable exception that a supervised personal representative may not make any distributions without court order. The responsibilities of the personal representative are greater since they are required to file with the court and serve upon interested persons additional documents. Informal and formal proceedings are two ways to accomplish the same things. By using either, you can have a will admitted to probate and a personal representative appointed.
Informal proceedings are less complicated and generally take less time to complete.
The results, however, can always be challenged in a formal proceeding. Thus, you do not have the finality gained by a court order obtained through formal proceedings. Formal proceedings require a court hearing. Notice of that hearing must be served upon interested persons. Formal proceedings are more complicated and generally take longer.