In our last blog, we discussed the Petition to begin Probate. After the Petition is submitted and accepted by the court, the person who will be administering the estate (the Executor, Administrator or Personal Representative), will go to the courthouse and take an oath. A Clerk or the Judge will administer the oath, which is a pledge that the Personal Representative will follow the law and/or the Will when administering the estate. After taking the oath, the Personal Representative will sign the oath and the person who administered the oath will also sign the form. When going to take an oath the Personal Representative will need photo identification.
Once the Personal Representative takes the oath, the court will process the Petition and review the Will, if one exists, and after doing so, if everything is in order, the Judge will issue an Order that legally names the Executor or Administrator of the estate and officially opens the probate. If there was a Will, the Order will also state that this Will has been officially accepted by the court as the Decedent’s Last Will. If there is no Will, the court will order bond, inventories, and reporting if all heirs did not elect to waive that requirement.
After any notice for (i) wavier of bond, (ii) waiver of reporting or (iii) granting of powers has finished running, the oath has been taken, and the order issued, the Executor will receive Letters Testamentary and an Administrator will receive Letters of Administration. The Letters are what give the Executor or Administrator the legal authority to act on behalf of the estate and to speak with financial institutions, creditors, financial advisors, or anyone else on behalf of the estate. Before the Letters are issued, no one has the legal authority to do anything for the estate. Once Letters are issued, the Executor or Administrator can obtain an Employee Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS, open an estate bank account, collect all the assets together, begin to pay and negotiate with creditors, enter into sales contracts (like the sale of a home), sign tax returns, access bank accounts and other financial accounts, and eventually make distributions.
Our next article will discuss the start of the debtor and creditor period, how to gather all the assets, paying debts, and generally administering the estate. This article is an overview of the typical probate process but does not account for unique circumstances, situations in which a Will is contested, and does not discuss the requirements of bond, inventory, and accounting. At Grissom Law, we handle various probate situations and work with other experts in our field to make the probate process as easy as possible.
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