The Role of an Executor

 Posted on April 11, 2014 in Estate Planning

When drawing up a will, one of the most important decisions that need to be made is who will serve as the executor of the estate. The executor is the person who will be in charge of ensuring that your last wishes are carried out.

According to an article in The Huffington Post, there are several things that an executor is responsible for. The very first thing the executor needs to do is to file the will with the court in order to begin probating the estate. The next step is to locate and take an inventory of all the estate's assets in order to determine the value of all the assets. An executor is also responsible for paying any bills the estate owes, such as funeral costs or taxes. He or she must also make notifications to any government agencies (such as Social Security or Veterans Administration), banks, credit card companies and the post office that the person has died. Executors are responsible for locating and notifying all the heirs of the estate. They are responsible for notifying the public that the estate is being probated, usually via legal notices in the newspaper. And if someone comes forward to file a claim to the estate, it falls to the executor to protect the estate against those challenges. The final duties of the executor are to file final income taxes for the estate and then to disburse all assets to the rightful heirs. Typically, people name a trusted family member or a close friend as their executor.  Other options are naming a trust company or bank to oversee your estate. Whoever is named executor is entitled to a fee for the work they do for the estate. In Illinois, that fee can range anywhere between 1 and 5 percent of the estate's value. There are many important decisions to make when drawing up a will. It's also important to have an experienced DuPage County estate planning attorney working with you to make sure that all your final wishes will be correctly written out in your will.