Serving as an executor is a very difficult task that carries with it many legal responsibilities. An executor should be careful to not pay bills be careful and should instead get a good grasp of the estate’s financial situation. They should also be careful not to use the estate’s assets to play the market, and they should avoid mishandling real estate. Executors also need to be aware of the tangible assets that belong to the estate to avoid losing any of them. “Executors must find all of the deceased’s assets and sort through all of their personal belongings to account for the entire estate, says Victor Ngai, an executive at Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America in New York.” Being an executor is a tough job and a person needs to be well prepared for dealing with all their fiduciary responsibilities.
See Veronica Dagher, The Biggest Mistakes Executors Make, The Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2016.
Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse for bringing this article to my attention.
