Estate Administration in 25 Essential But Not Always Easy Steps

For your reading pleasure, an excellent but brief article titled, “Estate Planning and Administration – Be Prepared for the Year That Follows the Death of a Loved One.” Worthy of a read if only to put you on notice that there’s a lot to do following the death of a loved one.

Here’s the middle paragraph:

Estate Administration is a Process. The estate administration process generally takes one to three years to complete and is supervised by attorneys. There are numerous steps in the estate administration process, including the following: (1) get the executor appointed by the Surrogate’s Court, (2) open an estate checking account, (3) gather assets, consolidate and retitle them in the name of the estate, (4) address claims and expenses, (5) obtain date of death values for all assets, including appraisals for hard to value assets, (6) prepare estate tax returns (federal and state), (7) prepare income tax returns (including decedent’s final life income tax return and the estate’s income tax return, (8) obtain a closing letter and appropriate tax waivers from the IRS and state tax authorities, (9) distribution of the estate and funding of trusts, including allocation of assets among various beneficiaries, and (10) prepare accounting (formal or informal) and obtain receipt and releases from the estate beneficiaries.

Some of these steps may not come into play depending on the size of the deceased’s estate and how it’s set up. Nevertheless, lots to do.

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