What Does Being an Executor of a Will Entail?

One of the most fundamental elements of any will is the naming of the executor or executors. These should be trusted individuals who have been consulted prior to their nomination. Crucially, they must be prepared to do some practical work with regard to the settling of the deceased individual's estate.

Responsibilities

In the terms of the law, the executor is required to 'collect, get in, and administer according to law the estate of the deceased'. In more specific terms, it is their duty to execute the wishes of the deceased. In this way, their first responsibility will be to settle any outstanding debts which are owed by the estate, and to assess any such claims made by banks or other financial institutions.

Following this they will be required to arrange for payment of any inheritance tax which may be owed by the estate and, of course, to carry out the disbursement of the remaining assets to the named beneficiaries. Finally, it will also fall to the executor to investigate the possibility of any further heirs.

It is possible for a solicitor or professional executor to be named in a will. However if, as is generally the case, a family member or friend has been nominated, they may choose to enlist the help of such a third party to aid them in their work. In these cases, the named executor has a substantial amount of choice as to how much of the work he or she carries out; a solicitor could be employed to carry out almost all of the work or, alternatively, only a small proportion of it. The executor's decision as to whether or not to enlist such help will of course be affected by the complexities of the affairs in question; in many cases, their duties will be no more than the disbursement of the contents of a bank account.

Minimum Commitment

Whether or not help from a third party is arranged, the named executor will be expected to carry out at least some of the work. Most frequently this entails performing the initial tasks associated with locating and valuing the deceased individual's assets. Again, depending on the size and complexity of the estate, this can be a very simple or a very complex task. Similarly, it is often expected that the executor will make the appropriate funeral arrangements, in line with the directions given in the will.

At a very minimum, the executor should assume that they will be required to lend their signature to a variety of documents.

In the first instance, and before any other action is taken, the executor must receive legal ratification of his or her right to take control of the assets in the estate. This requires them to apply for a Grant of Probate from the Probate Registry, which it will be necessary to produce before any bank or other relevant institution will hand over control of assets.

Although executorships can be a significant amount of work, it should be noted that the individuals in question are legally entitled to be reimbursed their expenses from the estate. The task should not, therefore, be to their financial detriment.