Settling an estate: advice needed!

interesteddad
Thu, 20 Jan 2011 19:01:56 +0000

For what it is worth, I would NOT “sign over executor powers” to a lawyer.



I don’t know the exact terminology, but my brother and I were co-executors of my father’s estate. We hired a lawyer (the lawyer who had drawn up his will) to handle the entire estate. The exact terminology may have been “personal representative”, I’m not sure and I don’t feel like digging through the files. He had the authority to go to all of the banks and brokerage houses and close the accounts, consolidate everything into an estate account, file the taxes, probate the will, settle the estate, and distribute the funds. The sum total of the work my brother and I had to do was sign off on forms at several points in the process.

This was particularly helpful since neither of us live in the state where the estate was being settled. We were also fortunate in that the will spelled everything out very clearly and there were no disagreements among the three interested survivors.

I felt, in retrospect, that the fees charged by the attorney were money very well spent. The alternative was to hire the attorney to advise us on local law and handle some of the legal filings. The attorney made a credible argument that it wouldn’t cost us any more to just let him handle the whole thing because not needing our three signatures on every last slip of paper made it much more efficient for his office. I don’t know. I think each person should explore the options and fees with an attorney and make their own decisions. I was VERY happy that we chose the path of giving the attorney the authority to handle every thing.