Summary: There are a number of very
important decisions you have to make as part of the creation of an estate plan.
One of the most important is the selection of your executor or successor
trustee. Whether you choose one person or several people serving together will
depend on the specifics of your family. Your estate planning attorney can help
you sort through the benefits and drawbacks of all of your options.
When you begin the process of
contemplating who should be your executor or successor trustee, it is important
to select someone who is best equipped to carry out the instructions you’ve
laid out in your plan. To help in this process, it is useful to avoid any possible
confusion or misconceptions about the process of selecting your executor or
successor trustee.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that
you have to choose only one person. This is definitely untrue. Each family is
different and so, the person or people serving in this capacity will look
differently. For some families, there may be one person who is uniquely
well-suited to take on these responsibilities. Perhaps, for example, among your
group of children, there is one who has the closest relationship with you,
lives the closest to you geographically and also has the strongest acumen when
it comes to business, legal and financial matters. For a family like this, it
may make sense to name this child as both your executor and your first
successor trustee.
In a lot of families, though, this will
not be the case. You may have one child who lives nearby while a different one
has the greatest legal and financial skill. In this example, you may want to
consider making both of these children co-executors or co-trustees. It is very
important to make sure that, if you name multiple people to serve at the same
time, that they are people who can work together successfully to ensure the
most efficient carrying out of your instructions.
You should also take care to name
alternates in the event that your most preferred people cannot serve, whether
due to their death, illness of other reasons. Naming second and third
alternates helps to ensure that your plan will not be saddled with needing a
judge to name someone to serve. This will cause delay, expense and may result
in someone serving whom you didn’t want.
Another thing to keep in mind is that,
depending on where you live, the person or people you want to serve as your
executor (or one co-executor) may be ineligible. Some states have rules that
limit executors to people who are residents of that state, or who make
non-residents jump through extra procedural hoops in order to serve. One thing
to keep in mind is that there are no similar rules restricting who may serve as
the trustee of your living trust.
If the person or people you prefer live
in a different state from you then, depending on where you reside, this may be
another good reason to look at the possible advantages of including a revocable
living trust in your estate plan. Selecting the documents to go in your plan,
as well as the people to carry out the instructions of your plan, is one of the
many pieces of the estate planning puzzle that your estate planning attorney
can help you as you sort through the “plusses” and “minuses” of each option.
This article is published by the Legacy Assurance Plan and is intended for general informational purposes only. Some information may not apply to your situation. It does not, nor is it intended, to constitute legal advice. You should consult with an attorney regarding any specific questions about probate, living probate or other estate planning matters. Legacy Assurance Plan is an estate planning services-company and is not a lawyer or law firm and is not engaged in the practice of law. For more information about this and other estate planning matters visit our website at www.legacyassuranceplan.com.
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