My gf’s mom has three sisters. One of the aunties died 10 months ago, at 91 years of age. Last week, another died, at 93 years of age. My gf was named executrix for the will of the 91 y.o. aunt, and it was fairly straight forward because the entire estate went to the 93 yo (neither married. They lived together their entire lives!)
Well, my gf is executrix for the 93 yo and it is more complicated. She was careful with money. Also she won a lottery 30 years ago for around 2 million dollars. She place much of the money in the stock market, bought many annuities, and purchased many life insurance policies.
So, my gf has been working hard organizing two tall filing cabinets filled with stuff. She has spent 4 hours each day after work dealing with this. Does anyone know “the rules” about being an executrix? Given the amount of money involved, I suggested she see someone, but who; a lawyer, banker, what? Also, can she reimburse her expenses from the estate, and how is that accomplished? Any hints or tips in general?
The estate is to be divided up equally between my gf, her two brothers, her mom and one surviving aunt. Does everything get liquidated, then cash divided equally five ways?
ETA: the funeral people supplied her with 10 death certificates. Can copies be made/used or just the 10 she has?
Talk to an estate lawyer. They know the rules for probate in your state, including issues like compensation for work as executrix. They can also help with any necessary probate or tax filings.
In Texas, an executor must be represented by an attorney. The rules vary a lot by state. Agree you should consult a probate attorney, the cost of the attorney will almost certainly be charged to the estate.
With the size of this estate, getting a lawyer is going to be the best option by far. Trying to do it herself will be a huge hassle in the best of circumstances. And when there is a lot of money involved, the heirs are likely to start fighting over who gets what. If she is the one making the decisions about how to liquidate and distribute the estate, then the heirs may sue her. They can still sue her if she has a lawyer, but at least with a lawyer she’ll have more protection and assurance she did things the right way. The cost of executing the estate should come from the estate. She shouldn’t have to pay for it herself.
Typically additional official certified copies of death certificates can be had from the city or county government for a small fee.
Even if she’s named in the will as the decedent’s choice for executrix, it doesn’t generally become official until a probate judge signs off on her appointment.
I definitely advise using an estate lawyer. The lawyer’s fees will be paid out of the estate, not from the executrix’s personal funds.
Life insurance policies typically don’t go through the estate. They have a named beneficiary and that person gets the money directly. She should not have to worry about those.
The investment accounts may also work the same way. They may have a named beneficiary who will get the assets. The same with other accounts like bank accounts, CDs, etc. The account beneficiary would get the money directly without going through the estate.
Property can also have beneficiaries. If a “Transfer on Death Deed” has been filed with the county, then the deed to the property will be assigned to the beneficiary without going through the estate.
Hopefully beneficiaries have been setup for the major assets. It would greatly simplify her job.
Heh. No suing or fighting here. Very close knit, loving family. They’d all prefer to have auntie back instead of money.
My gf is calling around to local estate lawyers. She is relieved that she is going to have help in this.
Aunt spent the past 10 months in an assisted living place. Her home was sold when she moved out, so that has been taken care of.
It is amazing how “with it” she remained for a 93 year old. She loved sports. If she was watching a game I’d sit with her just to get the added info she supplied.
Once I saw a rare play (details forgotten). I said I wondered if it had happened before. She replied, “the 1972 Pirates had a shortstop they called up from AAA near the end of the season. He was involved in a similar play. He was sent back down to AAA once he was no longer needed and never called back again”. I’d sneak mu phone out and research her statement (thinking she must have just made it all up) but every time I’d find out she was correct.
If she knows about the policy, she should contact the insurance company to get the process started. But often, insurance companies find out about the death on their own and initiate the payout. I think they monitor the death filings or something like that. I would suspect in many cases, the beneficiaries have no idea about the decedent’s life insurance policies and wouldn’t have a clue about who to contact.
To clarify, the copies she received are certified copies. For some purposes, a photocopy of a certified copy may suffice, but for anything to do with money probably a certified copy will be required. She can certainly request and receive (from the state, I think, or possibly from the mortuary) more certified copies if they are needed.
You will definitely need a lawyer to sort things out. Life insurance goes to the beneficiary (often in a special savings-like account) without going through probate. Many investment IRAs have a secondary beneficiary, who get the account once the death certificate is sent to them.
Stock transfers may require a medallion signature guarantee, like a notary seal but for stocks. If your lawyer doesn’t have one, you’ll have to search for a bank that does. (It can be hard to find a notary and the medallion guarantee is even more difficult.)
Other documents will also require a notary seal, though I’d expect most estate lawyers have one.
Joint bank accounts don’t need to go through probate if they’re set up as a joint account with right of survivorship (the most common setup). That gives the survivor full access to the account.
In the filing cabinet files she found all these different insurance policies with details about beneficiaries, policy number, payout, etc. Her aunt for whatever reason periodically bought another insurance policy from another company.
And she found a local estate lawyer through recommendation of a neighbor, so an appointment has been made.
I am the executor of my mom’s estate, and i got a stack of certified copies of the death certificate. But i think I’ve used maybe 2. I made a high-quality scan on my printer (which clearly says, “this is a copy, not the legal document” because it’s designed that way, to be hard to copy) and almost everyone has accepted a pdf of that scan emailed to them. Maybe the bank looked at an original and gave it back to me.
My mom’s estate is similar in complexity and size. The only financial conflict that’s come up in my family is that my brother is cheap and doesn’t want me to use the lawyer more than the bare minimum (my mom’s lawyer, and admittedly, grossly over priced) which has been a real hassle for me. I wish I’d just said, “I’m the executor, i have the legal right to hire a lawyer to take care of this. The estate will pay what it costs.”
My recent experience with DCs is the same as @puzzlegal’s. Very few entities nowadays demand a certified original, much less demand one they can keep. Most are happy with a quality scan e-mailed or faxed to them.
IME the funeral home / undertaker is the go-to place for DCs. They deal with the government bureaucracy every day, have couriers going back and forth, etc. In the two states I’ve done probates, the original set of DCs came to me from the funeral home and if I needed more for some reason just call them and ask and a day or two later they’ll have them in hand for you to pick up. IME the cost is nominal, $5 per item.
Death certificates can’t be terribly hard to get. The lawyer who sold my mom’s house (not the estate lawyer, a real estate guy) needed a copy of my dad’s death certificate, as the deed had never been updated when he died to reflect that she was the sole owner. When i couldn’t find one, he picked one up and didn’t even charge me for it.
Right. This is no time for the executor(s) to “cheap out.” If things go sideways, as they are likely to do if they are handled by an inexperienced layperson, then they are likely to take a lot of time to resolve; and could cost more money in the end, than if you (well, actually the estate) had paid an estate lawyer to look after things.
My sister was much like your brother when our Dad died. She first wondered if I could handle administering his estate, “because you’d do it for free.” (As you may know, IAAL.) I explained that Dad’s estate was in Ontario, and I am only licensed to practice in Alberta, so I couldn’t. Then she didn’t want to use the estate lawyer any more than we had to, “because that will cost money for things we could do ourselves.” I pointed out that if she wanted to take a lot of her time and money wading through a myriad of stocks, bonds, bank accounts, and other investments that she might not know existed and probably knew nothing about if she did know they existed, she could.
In the end, Sis reluctantly agreed, and we left the administration of Dad’s estate to an Ontario estate lawyer. All we had to do was to sign various documents that were couriered to us. The lawyer explained in cover letters what the documents concerned, and of course, if we had questions, we were welcome to telephone him for clarification. When his bill came, the estate paid it, and it was quite reasonable–I believe it came in at about $2000 or so for everything. Sis was surprised at the reasonableness of the lawyer’s cost, and how easily things went with him on the file.
Like I said, this is no time to “cheap out.” Pay the lawyer to get things done quickly, easily, and professionally.
Well, I believe we’ve paid my mother’s over-priced lawyer more than that for a lot less value. And nothing has gone wrong that had anything to do with legal stuff. The estate is winding down, and I expect to be able to finally settle it this summer.
But it was a mistake. We should have just hired the over-priced lawyer who had all the info and paid what it cost.
You can photocopy a death certificate but it won’t be Official so not valid for many situations. You can order as many additional official copies as you want for a modest fee from whatever agency issues them in your state.