King & Wood, P.A.

Does Executor have to Be a Family Member?

“What happens if you don’t have any family to be personal representative? Other than a family member, who can be personal representative?”

Executor, executrix or personal representative, whatever name you use, is the person who will be in charge of your estate and follow the directions in your last will and testament. The first thing clarified in a recent article titled “Estate Planning: Non-family member personal representatives” from nwi.com, is that the person does not have to be a family member.

This is often a surprise to people, who think an adult child or sibling is the only person who can take on this responsibility. This is not true. There is no requirement that a relative be named—it can be anyone you wish.

There are some requirements, which vary from state to state. However, for the most part include the following: the person has to be a legal adult, must not be incapacitated, and cannot be a felon or an “undesirable” person. As long as they are an upstanding member of the community, they may serve.

What are your choices? Some people prefer a family member, even if it is a distant relative or someone with whom they do not have a great relationship. It may take some digging to identify distant relatives. You may also have no idea how someone you don’t know will manage your estate. You should also contact them to be sure they will accept the responsibility. Without having an established relationship, they may decline.

An alternative is a trusted friend, as long as they meet the criteria noted above.

Another option is an institution that holds trust powers, such as a bank’s trust department. Community banks and some national banks do offer traditional trust services, including estate administration. There will be fees, but the experienced and impartial management of your estate may make this a better choice.

Some estate planning law firms serve clients in this role. Talk with your attorney to see if this is a service the firm offers. If the firm does not do this, they may have relationships with other professionals or institutions that can help.

One final note: don’t delay creating an estate plan because you cannot decide who should be your executor. Selecting someone for this role is not always an easy or obvious choice, but your estate planning attorney will be able to help you make the decision. Not having an estate plan is far worse than not knowing who to name as your executor.

Reference: nwi.com (April 18, 2021) “Estate Planning: Non-family member personal representatives”

Have Estate Planning Conversations with Aging Parents

“Nearly half of working-age Americans assume that they will receive an inheritance that will support them later in life, according to a survey by the financial services company HSBC.”

Let’s start with this idea: maybe your parents are going to leave you a generous bequest as part of their estate plan. Do you know this for a fact, or is it wishful thinking? The only way to know, advises a recent article from Yahoo! Finance titled “How To Talk to Your Parents About Their Estate (Without Making It Awkward),” is to have a conversation, or a series of conversations. It’s not the first awkward conversation you’ll have with your parents, but it may be a bit stickier than you expect.

No matter how you approach it, this is a sensitive issue. How do you avoid appearing greedy or selfish? There is actually a lot more to know beyond the inheritance issue. You need to know how to ensure that your parents’ wishes are carried out, while they are living as well as after their deaths.

It will be helpful to be aware that the prospective inheritance amount may change over the course of your parents’ remaining lives. You also don’t want your parents thinking that you consider yourself entitled in any way to the assets they have built over the course of their lives.

Instead, start the conversation by talking about their estate plan. Explain that you want to be able to follow their instructions. You might reference an article or blog post that you have read about the importance of estate planning. You can also talk about your own estate plan, explaining that you have created an estate plan to protect your children and family members and to be sure that your instructions are followed.

Don’t be afraid to acknowledge how difficult this conversation is for you. Reassure them that you are not looking forward to their demise, but you have concerns about how things will work out when the time does come.

Depending upon your family dynamics, holidays may be a good time to address estate planning. This provides an opportunity for all family members to be included and for concerns and plans to be shared among involved siblings.

This does not mean discussing inheritances at the dinner table. Focus on what your parents’ wishes are and include a conversation about what values they would like to pass on to the next generation. If there are family histories or stories to share, this is also part of your inheritance.

Regardless of when or how you approach the topic, you do want to be sure your parents have a plan in place, so there is a path for whoever will be taking care of them and their assets. Ask if they have these key legal documents:

• A Last Will, also known as a Last Will and Testament
• A Power of Attorney to designate someone to make financial and legal decisions, if they are not able to do so for themselves.
• A Living Will or health care directive that will designate someone who can make healthcare decisions and address end of life care for them.

Ask where your parents keep these documents, and how you can find them when the time comes. Are they in your father’s night table, or in a lockbox in the attic? If they have a financial advisor or estate planning attorney, who is that person? You’ll need to be able to access the documents and speak with their estate planning attorney.

A few awkward moments now will help all of you as your parents, and you, move through the coming stages of life.

Reference: Yahoo! Finance (March 25, 2021) “How To Talk to Your Parents About Their Estate (Without Making It Awkward)”

How Do You Handle Probate?

“Although there is considerable legal information and misinformation, it is generally understood that a last will and testament is the device used to distribute property after death. However, the why, how and when are less familiar.”

While you are living, you have the right to give anyone any property of your choosing. If you give your power to gift your property to another person, typically through a Power of Attorney, then that person is your agent and may give away your property, according to an article “Explaining the basic aspects probate” from The News-Enterprise. When you die, the Power of Attorney you gave to an agent ends, and they are no longer in control of your estate. Your “estate” is not a big fancy house, but a legal term used to define the total of everything you own.

Property that you owned while living, unless it was owned jointly with another person, or had a beneficiary designation giving the property to another person upon your death, is distributed through a court order. However, the court order requires a series of steps.

First, you need to have had created a will while you were living. Unlike most legal documents (including the Power of Attorney mentioned above), a will is valid when it is properly signed. However, it can’t be used until a probate case is opened at the local District Court. If the Court deems the will to be valid, the probate proceeding is called “testate” and the executor named in the will may go forward with settling the estate (paying legitimate debts, taxes and expenses), before distributing assets upon court permission.

If you did not have a will, or if the will was not prepared correctly and is deemed invalid by the court, the probate is called “intestate” and the court appoints an administrator to follow the state’s laws concerning how property is to be distributed. You may not agree with how the state law directs property distribution. Your spouse or your family may not like it either, but the law itself decides who gets what.

After opening a probate case, the court will appoint a fiduciary (executor or administrator) and may have a legal notice published in the local newspaper, so any creditors can file a claim against the estate.

The executor or administrator will create a list of all of the property and the claims submitted by any creditors. It is their job to ensure that claims are valid and have been submitted within the correct timeframe. They will also be in charge of cleaning out your home, securing your home and other possessions, then selling the house and distributing your personal furnishings.

Depending on the size of the estate, the executor or administrator’s job may be time consuming and complex. If you left good documentation and lists of assets, a clean file system or, best of all, an estate binder with all your documents and information in one place, it can alleviate a lot of stress for your executor. Estate fiduciaries who are left with little information or a disorganized mess must undertake an expensive and burdensome scavenger hunt.

The executor or administrator is entitled to a fiduciary fee for their work, which is usually a percentage of the estate.

Probate ends when all of the property has been gathered, creditors have been paid and beneficiaries have received their distributions.

With a properly prepared estate plan, your property will be distributed according to your wishes, versus hoping the state’s laws will serve your family. You can also use the estate planning process to create the necessary documents to protect you during life, including a Power of Attorney, Advance Medical Directive and Healthcare proxy.

Reference: The News-Enterprise (Feb. 2, 2021) “Explaining the basic aspects probate”

Can an Executor be Replaced?

“Drafting a last will and testament can help to ensure that your assets are distributed according to your wishes after you pass away. You can also use your will to name a legal guardian for minor children or choose an executor for your estate.”

The executor of a last will and testament is the person responsible for carrying out the instructions in a will. Giving a person this role is giving them the authority to handle many tasks concerning an estate, as explained in the article “How to Change the Executor of a Will” from KAKE.com. The person you name can be anyone you wish, from a spouse to a trusted family member, an adult child or even an estate planning attorney. Minor children may not serve as executors and some states do not permit convicted felons from serving as executors.

What does the executor do?

A beneficiary, a person who receives an inheritance from the estate, is permitted to serve as an executor, but the executor who is a beneficiary may not witness the will if they have a direct interest in it. The executor usually is in charge of:

• Getting death certificates
• Creating an inventory of the decedent’s assets, unless one exists already
• Contacting an attorney to begin the probate process
• Notifying financial institutions, including banks and investment firms of the person’s death
• Obtaining a tax ID number for the estate and opening an estate account
• Distributing assets to the persons named in the will.

The executor may not change the terms of the will, only carry out the instructions. They may collect a fee for their services, usually a percentage of the estate’s value. Regardless, whether they collect their fee is an individual decision.

Can you change the name of the executor on your estate?

There are many reasons why you might wish to change the person you originally named as executor to your estate. This is an important task, and if there have been changes in your life, then your estate plan and will should reflect those changes. Some of the reasons for changing your executor:

• If the original executor dies, or becomes seriously ill and cannot fulfill their duties
• If your spouse was the executor, but is now your ex-spouse
• The person originally named as executor does not want the responsibility
• Your original executor now lives many miles away.

There are two different ways to change the executor of your will. It is recommended that you discuss which of these two ways are better for your unique situation. Simple solutions often turn into estate planning nightmares.

How is a Codicil Used to Change the Executor?

A codicil is an amendment to a will that changes the terms, without changing the entire will. You specify the changes you want to make to your will, the name of the person who you now want to serve as executor from now on and the date the change needs to take effect. Estate laws are different in every state, so check with your estate planning attorney on the best way to do this. In some states, you’ll need at least two witnesses to be present when you sign and date the codicil. Remember that beneficiaries may not witness the codicil. Be careful to keep your will and the codicil in a safe place.

Why Change the Entire Will to Change Only the Executor’s Name?

The reasons for your changing your executor’s name may have occurred in combination with other changes in your life that warrant a review of your entire estate plan. This should be done every three or four years, or every time there are big life changes or big changes to tax laws. If you don’t review your estate plan, you can miss out on new opportunities to protect more of your estate for your family.

What If I Don’t Name an Executor?

Not having an executor is similar to not having a will. If you do not have either, the court will assign an executor to be in charge of distributing your estate, according to the laws of your state. You may not like how the law distributes your assets, but you will have given up any control. It’s much better for all concerned for you to have a will and make certain to have an executor.

Reference: KAKE.com (Dec. 29, 2020) “How to Change the Executor of a Will”

People Subject to Guardian Proceedings and Legal Representation

“It’s hard to imagine being stripped by a court of the right to make decisions about finances, medical care and other matters. It’s even harder to imagine that happening without representation or the advice from a lawyer.”

In many states, if a person is deemed unable to conduct their own affairs, a court appoints a guardian who makes decisions for the person and manages their financial affairs. In some states, Pennsylvania among them, the person has no legal right to have an attorney represent them during this process, explains a recent article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Guardianship gap: Give people a right to counsel for proceedings.”

The article maintains that people who face losing control of the right to manage their lives would benefit from having the advice of an elder law attorney, especially if they wish to fight against a claim that they are incompetent.

About 18,400 adults in Pennsylvania are now under guardianship, and most are over 60 years old. There are problems with the guardianship process in the Keystone State. As a result, the state’s Supreme Court took action with the creation of an Elder Law Task Force. The task force issued a report calling for reforms six years ago—in 2014. Some reforms have been put into place. However, a recommendation to require appointed counsel was never implemented.

What is strange, the article reports, is that the goal of legal counsel is somehow marked as having been accomplished. Several members of the task force have expressed dismay that a right to legal counsel has not been completed. A number of judges do appoint counsel in guardianship cases, because they believe it is the right thing to do. But not all of them do.

Guardian oversight and abuse is the concern. An improvement was made in 2018, when new software was made available, so that guardians could submit annual reports. The software identifies possible problems in the guardian’s handling of financial affairs. This has not solved the problem, as some jurisdictions are receiving alerts, but lack the staffing to follow up.

Guardians are also not required to submit bank statements, receipts and other documentation to verify their reports.

When you have an estate plan, including a power of attorney for financial affairs, power of attorney for healthcare decisions and a last will and testament, you are in control of who will take care of financial and legal affairs, if you are deemed incompetent.

When these documents are not in place, there is a very real risk that your life will end up being managed by a court-appointed guardian, who does not know you or your family.

Speak with an estate planning attorney to ensure that your wishes are properly documented and  that someone you select is able to represent your best interests, if necessary.

Reference: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (April 9, 2020) “Guardianship gap: Give people a right to counsel for proceedings”