When making an estate plan, it is important to come up with the key figures who will carry the plan out. The most important figure in that regard is the estate plan’s executor.
But what exactly does an executor do? What duties and responsibilities does a role like this come with?
Managerial duties
Forbes discusses the duties executors have. Generally speaking, executors will act as a sort of manager of the estate plan, organizing other parties like financial advisors and lawyers and ensuring that everything gets accomplished on time and appropriately.
They will also manage funeral expenses and other funerary matters. This includes figuring out how to make the decedent’s wish for their body’s handling happen. It can include paying for cremation services, a burial plot, a tombstone, a ceremony or more.
Financial duties
On top of that, they hold responsibility for other financial matters like paying a person’s last taxes, paying off any remaining debt and ensuring that they file every piece of legal paperwork on time in accordance with what the lawyers say.
They will also typically divide the assets after the process of probate is over, ensuring that all beneficiaries get what they should have.
Necessary skills
This means an executor needs to have strong self-management and time management skills, along with the ability to interact well with other people. The ability to detect social cues and moods is important, too.
Of course, an executor should also have a good understanding of who the decedent was as a person in order to ensure that everything they do would have that person’s stamp of approval.