When someone is a fiduciary (Executor or Administrator) of an Estate, they are accountable to the people who have an interest in the Estate.  This includes the beneficiaries.  When they are doing their job correctly, they are transparent, honest, and communicative. What if they aren’t doing those things?  What if they are being secretive, or doing things that don’t seem right?  Or are doing nothing? Sad to say, these things happen with some frequency. The…

When I start representing someone who is about to become a Fiduciary (Executor or Administrator) of an Estate, I always talk about “how an Estate finishes”.  Like many things in life and business, if you know where you are trying to go it is much easier to make a good plan to get there. Not every State handles “estate completion” the same way.  There are two basic approaches:  mandatory accounting vs non-mandatory accounting. In a…

There are two types of Surrogate’s Court Petitions that often give a lot a value. These are: Petition to Compel Production of a Will and Petition to Compel an Accounting. These are proceedings that can be used when you are trying to get things going and nothing is happening.   Not only are these petitions relatively easy to bring, they force recalcitrant players to come to Court and/or hire lawyers.  Very often these elements advance…

Basic definition – A fiduciary is a person who holds a legal or ethical relationship of trust with one or more other parties (person or group of persons). Typically, a fiduciary prudently takes care of money or other asset for another person. When doing Wills or handling Estates, we are often talking about fiduciaries.  A person who is named as Executor of an Estate, or who is appointed as Administrator of an Estate (in a…

Sometimes in Surrogate’s Court proceedings there are parties who have an interest in the proceedings but for some reason they cannot legally participate.  This can occur in any type of proceeding:  Probate, Administration and Accounting are the most common.  A party is considered “interested” if the proceeding affects them in some way.  In order to proceed with ANYTHING in Surrogate’s Court, you have to have “jurisdiction” over interested parties.  What this really means is you…

What happens if someone involved in an Estate is dead?  These situations are very common.  A few standard approaches apply….let’s look at a few situations: The most important distinction to know is that PRE-deceased situations are very different than POST-deceased situations.  When I refer to “PRE” and “POST” I am talking about when the person died in relation to the decedent (the one whose Estate we are talking about) The basic rule is that POST-deceased…

When I do Wills for clients, I always discuss the option of doing Living Wills and Health Care Proxies.  I consider these so important, and so fundamental to proper practice, that I offer them at no additional charge.  Here are the basics: LIVING WILL – This is a person’s written declaration that if they are in a hopeless situation, they do not want to be kept alive artificially.  Sometimes I say to clients “This is…