New York Probate Lawyers

Your executor for your will cannot immediately start giving things away to the family like heirlooms and inheritance. Legally speaking the first thing that needs to happen is filing a petition with the probate court. During this process they will formally open probate and validate the will. There is no distributing or throwing away of any property of the decedent until step one is complete. Of course, this does not prevent you from going through someone’s house and cleaning gutters or throwing away garbage. This refers to any of their property such as jewelry, clothes, cars, etc.

Once step one is completed and looks good to the court, they will validate the will and appoint an executor or administrator, if necessary. From there, the parties of interest and creditors need to be notified. “Interested parties” refers to the people who would be the next of kin of the decedent.

The executor of the will or the administrator (if one has been appointed by probate court) has the duty of sending notices. They need to send notices to any beneficiaries that were named in the last will and testament including the relatives who would be the ones who would inherit the estate. They also need to send notices to any creditors who the decedent was in debt to.

In the event that the will is uncontested, meaning that everyone involved knows that the will is valid and no one is challenging any aspect of it, then the probate court will simply review and sign some documents and continue on with the process.

In some circumstances, however, one of the next of kin could provide a version of the will that they believe to be more accurate and feel they should honor instead. It might also make the will they have on hand invalid, which requires a lot of review from the court. If there’s a lot of disagreement between the next of kin about what needs to happen to the estate and so on, then the probate court will need to make some decisions.

The creditors will be put on notice and given a time limit in which they can try to claim their outstanding debts. This time limit is typically between 6 to 9 months. The probate court is typically going to weigh in on matters such as these. To fully understand how this is going to work, it’s best to talk to New York probate lawyers about the process involving debts and how they need to be repaid.

The job of the executor or administrator is to go through the estate and put a value on all the assets based on the date of the death. That just means that, for example, the house was worth three hundred thousand dollars when the decedent died.

Sometimes, it is very easy to determine the value of an asset because it could just mean checking their bank account to see what the balance was at the time of death. Other times, it could just be going to a jeweler to get an appraisal on jewelry. You might want to speak to a broker about stocks and bonds. All of this is important because it lets the court know how much the estate is worth and how it’s going to be distributed properly.

Four: Asset Distribution

The probate process is long and it takes sometimes months to get to the distribution of assets. It’s complicated knowing how you’re going to sell the house if you need to and setting up an inheritance for minors and appointing trustees to manage that money. There’s a lot that goes into actually going through with distributing the estate. There are the debts and taxes that need to be paid and accounts that need to be closed. When paying off debts, there is the decision whether or not to keep or sell property, as well. It is a ton of work and, depending on where you live, the executor of a will is entitled to compensation for everything that they do.

Please know that this is an overwhelming process but our New York probate lawyers can help you through planning all of this. Having this all set up for your family is the best-case scenario.

When all these steps are said and done and the assets have been distributed and the executor has been paid, the last thing that needs to happen is closing the estate. This process is fairly straightforward and is going to be public record. It is done by means of a petition that will dissolve the estate. From there, the probate process is finished.