When someone dies someone needs to step in and pay their bills, assemble all the assets, get them all valued as of the date of death, and then, ultimately, distribute them. The trustee and the personal representative or executor need to manage this process in a way that is professional, organized, and itemized. It has to be very detailed; you have to keep an account of all funds flowing in, all funds flowing out for expenses and whatnot. And it’s really a gathering of the estate, valuing of the estate, and ultimately, distributing it. It usually takes depending upon the size of the estate often a year to 18 months and that’s because if an estate tax return has to be filed it has to be filed within nine months of date of death or it can be on extension for an additional six months. But an estate can stay open longer if the assets are difficult to sell or they for whatever reason are in the administrative trust for an extended period of time.

When we work with clients, we encourage them to what we call avoid the scavenger hunt. We have the keys to the kingdom, we create lots of inventory where all the information is contained, all the people who are named in your plan, all your beneficiaries, we have all their contact info. We ask people to create how to pay your bills because when someone dies or is sick and unable to manager their financial affairs, the first thing you need to do is keep paying the bills, if you don’t know what accounts they have, how to access them, how the bills are paid, most people are on autopay or auto credit card, you know, all of those little details really can impact the stress level of managing someone’s affairs. And it really starts with how do you access their computer and their phone? And having those passwords is the first step to the keys of the kingdom. And so, we work through that with our clients to get them organized and make the process less stressful for everyone.