All the usual disclaimers apply in full: you are not a lawyer, even if you are you are not MY lawyer, you are not licensed to practice in the jurisdiction in question anyway, etc. etc.
So … what happens if you are the executor of someone’s estate and you do not want to fulfill the obligations? Can you pay someone else to be the executor? Or are you forced to be the executor even if it means a lot of hardship for you? Do the answers tend to vary among jurisdictions or is there a pretty standard solution to this problem?
Assume that telling the person who appointed you in the first place that you don’t want to be their executor is not an option. The person who appointed you is dead, incapacitated, impossible to reason with, or never told you in the first place that they had identified you as the executor.
In my personal experience, my mother’s heirs found the appointed Executor unacceptable to them, and had the attorney appoint someone they agreed to. Had they not been able to agree on a person, the Court would have appointed someone else, who would have been paid by the Estate. I don’t know for sure who that might have been…I assumed it would have been the attorney for the Estate.
Oops, I’m going to add one thing…not about the executor situation, but in order to keep from bumping this thread to the top when it is time for it to die a natural death: namely, thanks in advance to everyone who responds. (Including you, Harry1945.)
Sure you can decline to be the executor of an estate when named in a will. Most well-drafted wills provide for an alternate executor in case the originally named executor is unable or unwilling to serve, and a second alternate if the originally named and alternate are unable or unwilling.
After that, it is up to the probate court to decide. The court has pretty free discretion depending on the circumstances. Where there is apparent harmony among the beneficiaries, the court may name one of the beneficiaries or a family member, but if there is acrimony, the court may decide on a neutral outsider.
I’m surprised, Harry, that a court would throw out a named executor at the request of the beneficiaries. The executor is supposed to be the choice of the deceased, and should not be changed unless there is some significant legal reason to do so, and the desires of the beneficiaries shouldn’t be such a reason.
Apparently Washington State law permits it, or did ten years ago. The original Executor didn’t protest his removal, and the person who became Executor had been named as the alternate, however.
Oft times the executor turns the duties over to an attorney who does the grunt work.
This happened with my father’s estate. My sister was the executrix, but the attorney did all the work.
In California (as of thirty years ago when I studied law and clerked in a probate court) the named executor can always decline to act, and the court will then appoint the Public Administrator to be executor-with-will-attached.