Estate Administration

Estate administration occurs when a person dies and assets need to be transferred to heirs if there is no Will or to beneficiaries under a Will if the deceased person has a Will.  Having a Will is very helpful because it eliminates the need for the posting of a bond for an executor to serve.  If you die without a Will, an administrator will be appointed who has the same duties as an executor but the administrator would have to post a bond to serve.  In either event, the party who is named to be in charge of the estate will be denoted as an administrator or executor.  This article will refer to either administrators or executors as “Personal Representative”.

The Personal Representative is responsible for presenting the Will to the Clerk of Court and then is appointed by the Clerk to serve as Personal Representative.  One of the immediate duties after becoming appointed as the Personal Representative will be for the Personal Representative to run a Notice to Creditors in a newspaper.   The Notice will allow creditors three months from the first date of publication to make claims against the estate.  The estate always has to remain open until the Notice to Creditors expires. Furthermore, the Personal Representative will have real estate appraised as of the fair market value on the date of death.  This allows the heirs or beneficiaries to have a new income tax base in the property in case they sell it. Personal Representatives generally need to obtain a Federal Tax ID# from the IRS in order to open an estate account.  The Clerk of Court issues documents entitled “Letters Testamentary” if a Will is involved or “Letters of Administration” if there is no Will.  These documents indicate that the Personal Representative may act on behalf of the estate.  The duties include marshalling all of the assets and ascertaining the bills of the estate and making reports to the Clerk of Court.  More formal reports to the Court consist of an inventory that is due 90 days after the person qualifies to be the Personal Representative and the Final Account which shows all bills being paid and all assets being distributed.  If an attorney is hired to assist the Personal Representative, then the Personal Representative usually never is required to go to the Clerk of Court and deals directly with the attorney who handles all matters before the Clerk.  It is very important to know how to list assets when filing any document with the Clerk of Court.  Attorneys are also helpful in having the Final Account prepared so that the Court’s audit of the Final Account is acceptable without numerous trips to the courthouse.

If there is a surviving spouse an attorney can advise whether the surviving spouse might qualify for a much shorter form of estate administration.  This can be done either in a Spouse’s Years Allowance or a Collection by Affidavit.   Surviving spouses should always inquire of an attorney being considered to help with estate administration to determine whether one of these abbreviated processes are available for purposes of administration.