Your executor should be a person or organization in whom you have a good deal of confidence because the executor will be responsible for conducting, on your beneficiaries' behalf, vital and sensitive business. The executor, for example, with the approval of the probate court, will have to perform some or all of the following duties:
• hire a lawyer to open the estate for probate;
• make a list of all assets, that is, real and personal property;
• arrange for an appraisal of the real property and of valuable personal property such as jewelry;
• collect insurance and/or retirement benefits;
• collect money owed to the estate;
• run a notice in newspapers telling creditors to present their bills;
• pay debts;
• file tax returns or hire a tax accountant;
• manage any family-owned businesses or the family farm;
• arrange for the estate to pay the family a living allowance until the estate is settled;
• distribute to the beneficiaries their inheritances;
• transfer to the trustees the assets of any trusts established by the will.
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