I need to update my last wishes. Is it appropriate for my lawyer to be the executor of my estate? If I only have a Will, does the Probate Court appoint an Executor? Does the court oversee the executor? Since I do not have any siblings or children I thought a will subject to probate would ensure my wishes were carried out.
Here we have a Public Trustee who can take this on. Their office is part of the public service, so there is some control over how it's done. There is a real risk with one lawyer or accountant who has no-one to oversee them. That includes their efficiency (as in billed hours) as well as honesty. Here the Public Trustee’s charge is a percentage of the estate. That’s a good deal for a small estate, but can be very expensive indeed for a large estate. With a big estate, it’s cheaper to appoint a firm that specialises in this – eg locally one is actually called the Executor and Trustee Co Ltd.
Do a rough calculation of how big your estate will be, and also how complicated. Will it include lots of different investments (multiple shares and real property)? Are there likely to be be challenges from family members who don’t like the way you’ve left things? If you work this out, you can actually ask for quotes (actually once again rough estimates) of the fees that different professionals would charge. They may also want to check your will, to make sure that the wording won’t cause problems with probate.
There is no easy answer, but it’s worth doing a bit of checking first. Good luck!
I ask cause if it’s in actuality smallish, you might right now want to consider to change a bunch if not almost all of your assets to be done as “beneficiary of”, POd/TOD pay / transfer on death. So yiur estate is actually nonexistent and the will is more of a cya document should something unexpected come up. An estate planning atty can help you get this done and perhaps they become the executor to deal with any things that should pop up later. It you want things to be in more than 1 hand, Geaton suggestion is great. The estate atty will know of probate guys that can open probate if need be. If yiur able to beneficiary of & POD there is little to no estate that needs to be done…. Things pass ownership outside of probate. Get a fully done preneed policy for funeral & burial or do a cremation and a separate preneed for florals & celebration of life event. If you can as well. A POD bank account with 10/15k IMO in it should be enough to deal with any incidental costs to settle costs and utility & insurance bills to cover the period of time (6 mos or so) for the executor attorney to deal with fees & paperwork associated to do the beneficiary of stuff if there’s a home and cars.
Also, if you have credit cards, look to see if they have the Insurance that will pay off any outstanding balance if something were to happen to you. That in and of itself can be a big help and a lot less of a headache.
I have also remembered from far off law school days that there are some exemptions to the requirement to appoint an executor. One example we got was a testator dying suddenly in battle who scrawled ‘all to my wife’ on a scrap of paper. And of course a named executor may predecease the testator without the will being updated – a real risk if an elderly person appoints a friend. Here, I’m pretty sure it would go to the public trustee.
Legal advice now could save a lot of money later. And remember that ‘the homemade will’ is a lawyer’s dinner toast. Cynical, but traditional! Yours, Margaret
The problem is who would handle getting rid my things, like household item, clothes, furniture, food, etc?