Elder law attorney Andrea Lee from Legacy Estate Planning joins Suzanne Newman on the Answers for Elders podcast to clarify the steps an executor of the family estate has to take after a senior loved one passes.
“When someone steps into that role of power of attorney, loving daughter or son or good friend, whomever that is, there are so many different hats that they wear when they act as an advocate for their loved one. Many people misunderstand the steps that have to be taken care of after someone passes away. And there’s there’s a little bit of confusion about, hey, I was a power of attorney, but mom died. What happens now? What are my roles? What do I do? And what are the necessary steps that an agent has to do after the death of a loved one?
“When someone passes away, one of the first things that you should do, you grieve them. You take a little time to reflect on your relationship with that person and spend some time grieving your loss. And then, the next step really should be sitting down with a competent estate planning and or elder law attorney to answer some questions about the legal steps or legal requirements after someone dies.
“I recently had a case where an individual was ill for a long time and his mom actually was his power of attorney. She’d acted on his behalf. She obviously loved her son deeply… And after he died, the mom — thinking, hey, I’m this is my son, I’m the power of attorney — actually started giving away his personal property, taking steps to administer his estate. However, his will named a different executor and different beneficiaries who were his minor nieces and nephews. Luckily, it was a good family and we were able to fix everything that had gone wrong. However, her lack of understanding of her role and what happened after her son died could have very, very easily led to her being in trouble for improperly distributing assets.”
“I met with a client very recently whose father was an estate planning attorney, and she’s aged herself now, she’s in her seventies or eighties. And she said, my father told me he became an estate planning attorney because he liked and loved people… I couldn’t understand that when I was a child, because I thought he just filled out paperwork. But now that I’m realizing the humanity of aging, and the humanity of assisting family members through the death of a loved one, I’ve really come to realize that — especially with estate planning, different from other laws — really is about caring for your clients. It’s really not just checking the boxes of an administration, but being that support system for that individual who has recently lost a loved one.”
“One of the main reasons you do want to meet with that estate planning attorney after the death of a loved one is there are significant legal obligations that are thrust upon an agent named in a will, and you start acting in that role, then you’re accepting some of those legal responsibilities. And so the role of that attorney is to guide the executor or the trustee through those legal requirements. There are a number of steps that a trustee and/or an executor have to follow. There are both federal and state deadlines that need to be met. There are obligations they have to fulfill, there are notices they have to provide. And most people will act as an executor or a trustee a handful of times in their life. Once, twice, maybe a few more. And they just don’t have the time to actually learn all of their obligations. So a good estate planning attorney should be able to sit down with an executor or a trustee and then hold their hand through an entire administration.”
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